From: Larrie McDonald <
larrie@helix.net>
Hello Debra
Having been on both sides of your question in three different roles, I hope
something I say is useful to you.
I have created class consulting projects in my curriculum, been a consulting
team participant of a community capacity building community development
intervention, and recently as a principle in an active consulting company
use a version of what you are doing as a norm in our company.
What I learned from the college instructing experience is the team project
model does work if the teams are kept small, much like an operational
consulting team. I suggest three or four students max in each team. As for
getting clients, this is easy if you focus on community activities, NFP's,
Societies most of which are mini businesses (whether they realize it or not)
dealing with all the business and organizational issues of their more
visible counterparts. If "real" businesses are needed to satisfy your
mandate, or curriculum learning objectives, there are plenty of new
entrepreneurial start-ups you may access through your SBA office. Usually
in my experience, traditional established companies end up using students
for gopher jobs where they learn about organizational culture and low
positions more than gain business experience (in the board room, helping
craft visionary options, project planning for example.)
What I learned as part of the community development consulting team was that
the project was contaminated by the team itself, ...due to confusion about
their purpose in being on the team in the first place. The organizer wanted
to use new masters level graduates (inherently trained and competent) to
provide community organizations the expertise they needed but could not
afford. That was fine. The consulting teams wanted to satisfy this
objective, but it was secondary to their motives to be exercising their role
as "Consultants". So, they used language that was incongruent with their
real personal motives, the clients picked up on the inconsistencies, they
felt the inconsistencies, they began to mistrust the consultant teams, and
in every case I observed, eventual the client turned on the team. The
objectives were not met of either the client or the consultant team. In the
project evaluation, the consultants generally saw the results as lack of
client readiness; the client saw the results as expected from mistrusted
consultants.
I think this could have been avoided in a training mode. The goals and
expectations could have been clearer, more accurate and consistent with what
really was occurring.
What I have learned as a principal in a consulting practice is that there
can be very worthwhile and life changing learning when the students are used
as a non-paid working advisory board. We do this by virtual connection
regularly. (It is a value-based commitment of my partner and myself to give
back to society and future business practitioners, ...while we get
assistance and another view) The student consulting team is involved in
strategic meetings (setting up the project methodology and action plans) and
ongoing virtual meetings. Their input is valued and their work is passed to
us through the WWW. They do have some gopher tasks (research for example),
but the tasks push them to satisfy professional standards, the work is real
and valued,...and they know/feel it all the way through the project. The
experience helps their CV upon graduation. They don't get credit for the
academic experience but neither do they pay tuition for coop experience. It
might fit for some and won't for others, but the model allows some students
to reach beyond their local community to get a client for their project.
Another benefit of this model, is that it forces students to experience and
become competent participating professionally in virtual teams, which are
becoming more the norm these days. You will no doubt be aware of the
research that is building on virtual teams and all the inherent problems
(lack of trust, lack of knowing members' competence, lack of personal
relationship, sometimes low commitment to the "invisible" and out of sight
team). Professionals need to have experience, competence and confidence
working on virtual teams and I believe this is a good learning model for
students. Graduates also need to experience cultural diversity with
clients, and they need to grasp it over the phone or internet to be useful
and participative with/for clients. This model of accessing clients outside
their geographic region could be very beneficial to them.
As a consultant, we are still learning from the experience as well.
Selection criteria is important student team skills must be known and needed
on the project so they can do competent work), and clear expectations of
all, are important. Mostly, commitment on the student's side is critical.
An issue that exists more for you as the instructor is how you evaluate
student performance. We have favored a simple quick to complete
post-project evaluation questionnaire that both we and the student completes
on your behalf. You have the task of assessing performance. If used well
(if you had the time) the variances between questionnaire data (the
student's and ours) makes for excellent learning as well.
For what it is worth, I hope my comments have been of some help, or at least
of interest. I would be interested in hearing over time what you learn in
the process.
All success,
Larrie McDonald, Principal,
Westcoast CED Consulting Ltd.,
Community Economic-Organization Development practitioners
Vancouver, B.C. Canada