This article is from the August 2002 Issue of Update.

The increasing use of consultants by library and information services has brought into focus the relationship between client and contractor. As a result of this a body of good practice is now emerging in the sector.

Consultants bring to clients their specialist expertise, an understanding of management issues, which is often derived from direct experience of managing a service, and specific consultancy skills, such as problem definition, project management and presentation skills.

Why use a consultant?

The specific reasons for hiring a consultant will depend on your situation.

Consultants may have specialist expertise that you do not have ready access to in house. For instance if you are planning to develop a new metadata system you might want to bring in someone who has experience of this in other organisations. You benefit not only from their skills, but also from the lessons they have learnt from previous projects.

You may not have the time or staff available to conduct the work yourself. Very often clients have equivalent experience to the consultant, but they do not have the time to devote to gather the necessary evidence to support their decision-making. This is where a consultant can work well in partnership with you.

You may want an independent view from outside the organisation. Some situations are so ‘political’ that an independent, external view is required to validate any findings. It can also be useful where you want to survey your users’ views of your services.

You may need help and experienced guidance to define the problem. When you are in the middle of a situation it can be difficult to see what the real problem is. A good consultant should be able to go beyond the immediate brief and find out the reasons for an assignment before preparing a proposal. For instance, your library or records centre may be running out of space and the immediate response could be to call in a consultant to look at storage options, when what is really required is someone to help you establish and implement an acquisitions and disposal policy.

Getting the best out of the consultancy process

While there is no one way of working with consultants, there are some guiding principles which will help to encourage success. One sign of a good consultant will be their ability to help the client towards good practice. To get the most from a consultancy project, you should:

• Obtain high-level support or sponsorship. If the person responsible for the library and information unit is not a senior manager, then it may be necessary to get a sponsor or champion within the organisation to dedicate the necessary resources. Remember we are looking at the cost not just of the consultancy, but also of implementing any recommendations (especially true for the development of new services).
• Have clear objectives. What is it that you are asking for advice on? What decisions will be made as a result of the consultant’s advice? What could change as a result of that advice? If the outcome of the consultancy will have no effect on your direction or decision-making, consultancy may not be the answer.
• Do your research. Talk to other organisations that have faced similar issues. Look at the professional press for your sector or profession to see what experience has been gained elsewhere.[1] Identify consultants that have published relevant articles or spoken at conferences. Ask for recommendations from colleagues and fellow professionals. Make sure that the consultants are appropriately qualified, have relevant experience, are covered by professional indemnity insurance, and can provide references from satisfied clients.
• Be competitive. Develop a brief and terms of reference. It is often helpful to give a guideline figure or put an upper limit on what you are prepared to spend on the project — it saves you a great deal of time sifting through bids that are out of the budget range. You may decide to invite bids from a small number of specialists, or you may have a pre-qualification bid (for larger projects). Whatever you do, make the selection procedure as straightforward as possible and appropriate to the scale of the project. For instance, if you are looking at a project with a budget of £2,000 it may not be worth your time going through a multi-stage selection process and interviewing 10 candidates. If someone is not selected, be prepared to give them feedback.
• Be open. Share with the consultants what you already know about a problem. If previous work has already been done, let them see it. It can save time and prevent the consultants going down blind alleys. It also gives them an opportunity to ‘build from a higher base’ and deliver a better result. If a problem arises, for instance with funding or with the timing of the project, tell the consultants — keeping their goodwill may pay off later.
• Be realistic. It may be better to undertake a staged approach, rather than trying to do everything in one go. This can be particularly important in the case of a large implementation project where there may be a number of options. Sometimes a scoping study may be necessary to define the issues more clearly and to develop a route map for the detailed work. This can also provide the arguments or a business case for resources necessary to undertake a full assignment.
• Be willing to challenge. Do not be afraid to challenge the consultant if you feel that the project is going off track or you do not understand the direction being taken. You are the customer and the consultant is there to help you as a manager. A good consultant will welcome constructive comments and will enter into a dialogue with you.

How does the consultancy process work?

So how do you go about using a consultant? Figure 1 shows a general approach to consultancy, although there will be variations depending on your particular requirements and objectives and the length of the project.

There are four main phases to a consultancy assignment (see Figure 1):

1. The pre-consultancy, where the problem is defined (either by you or with input from the consultant). This is often the point at which senior management support is sought and resources allocated to the project. The process of justifying this internally will help you to draw up the terms of reference for the consultant. If it is a competitive bid, then there is a procurement cycle to identify suitable suppliers, invite tenders and then select the appropriate consultants.
2. The appointment of the consultants will normally include finalising the contract, providing an initial briefing session to discuss and confirm the terms of reference and the proposal and if necessary negotiating any changes to the terms. A planning session will set a timetable and agree specific targets for the project.
3. The next stage will be data gathering, which may use a variety of techniques depending on the specific project requirements. A systematic, statistically significant survey may be undertaken, or alternatively a more qualitative approach may be adopted. Analysis of the data gathered may lead to consideration of a number of options before specific recommendations are made.
4. The final phase of the project will be delivery of the recommendations in the form of a report, or as a presentation followed by discussion. The implementation plan will be developed at this stage. As part of the implementation process, the consultants may brief senior staff and users and provide training to staff responsible for service delivery post-implementation.

What is consultancy — and what is it not?

Library and information consultancy is a very diverse area and, increasingly, general management consultants and researchers are becoming directly involved. Most leading consultancy firms have a network of associates with specific specialist skills and experience. Examples of library and information consultancy projects include:

• Public consultations, where a consultancy team gathers evidence to support policy-making by a public authority.
• Service reviews to assess the requirements of an organisation and to establish what changes are necessary to meet those needs (this may involve the establishment of a new service where none currently exists).
• Change management to identify issues and problems that need to be handled and to find ways of addressing them. These issues may be centred on staffing, resources, space management, or migration to electronic media. They may also arise from mergers or takeovers or major reorganisations within a company.
• Feasibility studies to explore the options available for implementing a specific service or change within the information service. Very often this is technology orientated, for instance the implementation of knowledge management systems or electronic records management systems.
• Procurement of systems or services. You are only likely to procure a new library management system once every five (or more likely 10) years. If you do not have an in-house procurement unit, then a consultant with the expertise to develop a specification and knowledge of the product market can save considerable time and expense.
• Setting up a new service where there is no established practice. You can bring in an expert who is able to establish requirements and help you plan and implement a new service.

There is a lot of confusion about what consultancy is and what it is not. One of the most common misconceptions is the idea that consultants make decisions on behalf of clients. This is rarely the case and arguably should never be the case. They are there to advise and provide evidence to support the decision-making process.[2]

There is a difference between ‘information brokerage’ and ‘information consultancy’, terms which were for a long time used synonymously. Although they both have a strong problem-solving aspect, consultancy is about giving advice whereas information brokerage is about giving information.

Another area of confusion lies in what is freelance library and information work and what is consultancy. Freelance workers will normally undertake a specific task for a client — often requiring considerable expertise and sometimes requiring some consulting with the client. Consultancy often precedes a freelance assignment and is focused on what needs to be done.

Although consultancy and research are closely related (research techniques being commonly used in consultancy), they have different purposes. Research tends to be academically rigorous rather than practical, it has to be reproducible (so there is a great deal of emphasis on methodology) and it is generally for publication, whereas consultancy assignments are normally treated as confidential.

References

1 For instance, the CILIP Buyers’ Guide, the quarterly supplement to Library & Information Update, lists library, information and knowledge management consultants. It is also available on CILIP’s website (www.cilip.org.uk/buyersguide).

2 The Institute of Management Consultants’ code of practice can be found on www.imc.co.uk

David Haynes is Head of CILIP Consultancy Services. He is a Fellow of CILIP and a Certified Management Consultant. He has worked as a library, information and records management consultant since 1984 for the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK, Europe and internationally. CILIP Consultancy Services are described on the CILIP website (www.cilip.org.uk/consultancy).