Internal Consultants and Environmental Awareness

If part (or all) of your role could be described as an “internal consultant” you are probably familiar with minimal role clarity, high stakes problems, and the need to rely on multiple people to come together to establish a path forward. You may also be familiar with that feeling of being assigned to a project that others don’t understand your role or value… maybe you don’t get the invitation to have a seat at the table. To establish value as an internal consultant requires a balance of subject knowledge, environmental awareness, and quickly identifying areas of value. This session will look at how to establish your footing at the start of an engagement so you can grow to be a requested and valued voice and player.

Session Outline

1. Internal Consultant Definition: A person who has knowledge, skills, experience and the ability to influence. Usually pulled into projects that have minimal clarity or to scope solutions to complex problems.

2. The non-negotiables of establishing yourself as solid internal consultant: trust, environmental awareness, sponsorship, stakeholder alignment, etc.

3. Scenario: Sara to share story of attrition and retention work at Cerner, how the consulting role was established with other SMEs, what was considered as part of the environmental awareness, and reactions from people on the project to perceived value of the role.

a. When have you been on a project with someone who was missing the environmental queues?

b. Can you think of situations where you have witnessed someone be really strong in establishing their internal consulting role?

4. Q&A

Presenter: Sara Zwiefelhofer from Cerner