Effective Communications for Consultants (CO30)

In this course, you will cover both oral and written communication skills, focusing on those aspects of the consulting engagement that can make communicating recommendations particularly challenging.

Course Outline

A successful consulting engagement requires open and effective communications between the consultant and client. In this course, you will cover both oral and written communication skills, focusing on those aspects of the consulting engagement that can make communicating recommendations particularly challenging. You will also cover facilitation skills in multiple contexts, including application to conducting effective meetings.

To make the most of your classroom experience, you must complete exercises before and after the classroom sessions.

Students pursuing a university-recognized and/or accredited certificate in Canada or continuing education units in the US must attend at least 90% of class time, participate in class exercises and section-knowledge checks, and score at least 70% on an end-of-class, multiple-choice assessment.

What You'll Learn

• Communicating with People
• Key Communications Concepts
• Plan Your Message
• Structure Your Message
• Write Reports and Proposals
• Make Presentations
• Conduct Effective Meetings
• Facilitating

Who Needs to Attend

• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• IT Professionals
• Engineers
• Others in technical roles who are seeking to become practitioner technical consultants or who wish to become more consultative in their work with their internal or external clients

Course Outline

Pre-Work:  Preparation Phase

• Pre-course self-assessment
• Pre-course reading and discussion with manager/mentor
• Personal Needs Assessment (PNA)
• Introduction to key models
• Selection of sample communications scenarios

1. Communicating With People

• Reports and proposals as management tools
• Communicating through presentations
• Getting the most out of meetings
• Common communications problems

2. Key Communications Concepts

• The Process of Understanding model
• Success factors
• Relevance to consulting

3. Planning Your Message

• Setting communications objectives
• Analyzing your audience
• Planning your content

4. Structuring Your Message

• The IOCBAA model
• Openings
• The body of your communication
• Summing up
• Using the communications planning guide

5. Writing Reports and Proposals

• Executive summaries
• Reports, proposals, and memos
• Formal reports
• Tips for overcoming obstacles

6. Making Presentations

• Formal and informal presentations
• Communicating effectively verbally
• Dealing with nervousness
• Attitude, mannerisms, voice, body language
• Using visual aids
• Encouraging participation

7. Conducting Effective Meetings

• Preparing for a meeting
• Conducting meetings: ground rules, roles, best practices
• Action assignments and following up

8. Facilitating

• Listening skills
• Using questions for maximum impact
• Handling informational and hostile questions
• Facilitation challenges

9. Post-Class:  Performance Phase

• Online challenge quiz
• Review of key models and tools
• Review with manager/mentor:
  • Key learnings
  • Key models and tools
• Implementing your communication scenarios

Additional Details

Pre-Requisites

- Consulting Fundamentals or practical experience as a consultant and solid knowledge of the topics covered in that course, including the role of the consultant, key consulting processes, and the consulting life cycle - Consulting Fundamentals (CO10)

Certificates offered

15 PMI PDUs

Cancellation Policy

We require 16 calendar days notice to reschedule or cancel any registration. Failure to provide the required notification will result in 100% charge of the course. If a student does not attend a scheduled course without prior notification it will result in full forfeiture of the funds and no reschedule will be allowed. Within the required notification period, only student substitutions will be permitted.

Reschedules are permitted at anytime with 16 or more calendar days notice. Enrollments must be rescheduled within six months of the cancel date or funds on account will be forfeited.

Map & Reviews

Global Knowledge
[ View Provider's Profile ]

Global Knowledge Kitchener
50 Queen Street North
Suite 860
Kitchener, Ontario
Canada   N2H 6P4

Reviews

 

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Here are some reviews of the training vendor.

   

- do we get a certifiacate for completing the courseÉ - although the instructor did give us excercises to do I would have liked a few more - almost like a test, so that I made sure I retained and understood what was taught. I`m a learn to do by doing person and like the instrutor lead courses so I can have someone there to explain in my terms how things work. I`ll have to really use the online excercises to make sure Ì am confident when I need to do something in Excel.

Reviewed by Delores P. 2012

   

Should be time allocated for questions and answer

Reviewed by Vinod P. 2012

   

The instructor was excellent as was the hands-on learning approach. The only thing I took issue with was the fact that there were a lot of bilingual persons taking the course and they tended to ask questions in French, during this English class. The instructor was trying very hard to explain everything in both languages, but I felt that these students should have requested a French-speaking classroom setting if they wanted to speak French.

Reviewed by Sheila D. 2012

   

Very professional. Facility clean and comfortable.

Reviewed by Christine P. 2012

   

For the cost of this course, a hard copy of the course handout should be provided as the classes follows the handout word for word.

Reviewed by Caroline P. 2012

   

The facilities at Global Knowledge were great. The Instructor was very knowlegable and made it easy to learn the material. It was a very good experience:)

Reviewed by Tonia L. 2012

   

Note: We had 2 different trainers during this 3 day course. Course: Terminology should reflect North America and be consistent with our business lingo.

Reviewed by Harman M. 2012

   

Found the course very informative. I had little exposure to Sharepoint and learned a number of things I didn't know. Plan to take the next level of training

Reviewed by Michael R. 2011

   

A charged mannul would be provided for students to make notes whereever they think instructions are important as reminders

Reviewed by jinxiu z. 2011

   

The course is so expensive to be payed by oneself. In almost all the others participants their companies pay the fee.

Reviewed by Ricardo T. 2011

   

No course books were provided for us to take.

Reviewed by Hala M. 2011

   

Course was very detailed but more time would be helpful during workshops. An additional day would help lessen the course load.

Reviewed by Roydon F. 2011

   

should have discuss some case studies,,overall A+

Reviewed by Syed A. 2011

   

Our instructor was very knowlegable and he provided excellent real life stories.

Reviewed by Stephen W. 2011

   

The course was very relevant. I was able to apply the knowledge I aquired in the course to my job on the very next day. The only complaint I have is with the temperature of the room. It was freezing! Students has to wear a jacket or sweater. We were told the temp gage was shared with another classroom that was quite warm so they had turned the temp very low causing our room to be very uncomfortable.

Reviewed by Yasmine I. 2011

   

Given the cost of the course, the hardcopy of the manual should have been provided. It would have been useful to make notes alongside the material as we went along.

Reviewed by Jeff P. 2011

   

I am very disappointed with the handouts. I was told I could go online and download a copy of the manual, the problem is that I would like the printed copy of the manual. I chatted online with one of your technitian who was unable to help me. Then I was told someone would contact me by phone to help me. That never happened. When taking a training course, a person EXPECTS to leave the course with ALL the material.

Reviewed by Betty M. 2011

   

Great course provider, keep it on your roaster

Reviewed by Catherine G. 2011

   

Course content and labs were very good, everything worked as expected.

Reviewed by Francisco C. 2011

   

I really enjoyed this course and was surpised how ell everything was run...enjoyed the instructer very much (Par) and would like to take an other course with him. I wish we could have taken the work book home with us though!!!

Reviewed by gail h. 2010