Issue Based Consulting
February 2, 2014Training: Consulting Led Selling
February 6, 2014I attended the IBC course in 2010 and was able to apply the IBC methodology in a few projects. Though, there aren’t many “pure” IBC-projects, the methodology works also for “task-based” projects. I’m happy to share my experience with IBC.
For me, there are two main benefits:
By structuring the objective with the IBC methodology consultants get a better picture about the objective, the missing parts, and how to approach the objective in the project. I experienced that consultants hesitate to use IBC as it is necessary to step back and spend time in the early stage of a project to actually apply IBC, they tend to start to work even the objective isn’t clear. Well, my experience is that it is worth the time as in a later stage of the project time can be saved due the structuring. Consultants are able to progress very fast in a project once the issues, hypos and questions are prepared.
IBC helps to communicate with the client in every project stage. It can be used in a pre-sales stage to get a mutual understanding of the project and the issues to be analyzed. This does not mean that all questions and hypos have to be exhaustively defined. In the interaction with the client consultants should be able to identify the expectation of the client. In a later stage of a project IBC gives a clear road map and good basis for discussion (milestone, progress, budget) with the client. By applying IBC I never experienced any surprises with the clients expectation. Assignments, tasks, time table, budget, results were always clear and accepted by the client. It also helps to communicate bad results or inclusive results in a objective and comprehensible way.
Moritz Gartenmeister
Senior Consultant
cirquent | NTT DATA Group
