IS Consulting Process (IS 6005)

1
IS Consulting Process (IS 6005)

• Masters in Business Information Systems 2006 /
  2007
• Programme in Professional Information System
  Practices

Fergal Carton Business Information Systems
2
Last week

• Project planning
• FTE notes (make sure the effort is where it adds
  value!)
• Most cost for IT implementations is in FTEs
• Presenting your proposal
• Judge your audience, work the crowd in advance
  and afterwards
• Main message
• USP or elevator pitch
• Validate assumptions (especially around scope)
• What do you need from the meeting (next meeting
  date, updated proposal, budget sensitivity, who
  are key players, )
• Look after the logistics (together with your
  client)
• List of attendees with titles in advance
• Coffeee
• The Win strategy
• Pick and choose for your own use (Power map,
  yellow flags, )

3
This week

• Presenting your proposal
• 5-10 minutes
• Get across key messages
• Presentation tips
• Replying to tenders (Accenture notes)
• Writing good business messages

4
Presentation tips

• 5 bullets
• Keep it simple whats the overall point?
• Pictures speak louder than words
• This isnt a reading test (neither for you or
  your audience)
• How can slide enhance message?

5
Presentation tips

• Can it be done without slides?
• Do you believe what youre saying?
• Will your audience believe it?
• What vital signs could mean success / failure?
• How to deal with questions / comments?

6
Preparing the response

• Formulating a Tender Response
• Examine internal and external influences e.g.
  SWOT Analysis
• Gather the required knowledge capital e.g. people
  and information
• Collate the key requirements
• Develop the necessary templates
• Identify the value creators and a win strategy
• Effectively manage the process
• Post Mortems

7
Basic Message Sequence

• Basic Message Structure
• Main idea
• Support
• Evidence
• Basic Message Sequence
• Direct / decuctive approach main idea (e.g.
  recommendation, request) comes first, followed by
  evidence
• Indirect / inductive approach evidence comes
  first and then the main idea comes after
• Direct or indirect approach depends on message
  type and audience reaction

8
Composing Business Messages

• Use a conversational tone
• Write in plain English
• Use appropriate level of formality
• Avoid
• being overly familiar
• inappropriate humor
• Obsolete / pompous language
• Clichés or jargon
• Overuse of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)
• Select active or passive voice
• Normally use Active (stronger sentences, concise,
  easy to understand)
• But use Passive when appropriate (diplomacy
  avoid attributing credit or blame, create an
  objective tone)
• Write coherent paragraphs

9
Writing Coherent Paragraphs

• Paragraph elements
• Topic sentence
• Related sentences
• Transitions
• Paragraph Development
• Illustration
• Comparison or contrast
• Classification (break down idea into categories)
• Cause and effect
• Problem and solution

10
Revising Your Message

• Content / Organization / Style / Tone
• Promote readability
• Avoid overly long sentences and keep paragraphs
  short
• Vary sentence length
• Use lists and bullets for emphasis clarity
• Avoid non-parallel list items and unparallel
  sentences
• Use
• Improvement, identification, development
• Improving, identifying, developing
• Not
• improve, identifying, development
• Avoid too much enthusiasm (e.g. extremely,
  exceptionally, extraordinary)

11
Designing Page Layout

• Consistency (margins, typeface, type size,
  spacing, paragraph indents, etc)
• Strive for simplicity in design
• Balance text, graphics, white space
• Use meaningful headings and captions for figures
  or tables