Module BUSI45J15: Consulting

Department: Business School (Business)

BUSI45J15: Consulting

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• To develop students’ abilities to apply their knowledge and skills to explore problematic situations, and identify and gain agreement to actions to enable improvement.

Content

• The role of the consultant;
• The client relationship;
• The engagement as a project;
• Exploring the problematic situation;
• Influencing change;
• Evaluating an assignment and the team.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of the module students should:
• Have a critical understanding of the different roles of the consultant;
• Have a critical understanding of a project framework as a way to structure a consulting engagement.

• By the end of the module students should:
• Have the ability to apply a project framework to scope, plan and manage a consulting engagement working as part of a team;
• Have the ability to apply knowledge to explore a problematic situation and identify opportunities for improvements.

• By the end of the module students should have:
• Ability to think critically and creatively and to argue coherently;
• Planning, organisational and time management skills;
• Problem solving and analytical skills;
• Ability to perform effectively within a team environment, including skills of leadership and performance management; team building; influencing and motivating; monitoring performance, mentoring and coaching; and project management;
• Interpersonal skills of effective listening, negotiating, persuasion and presentation;
• Skills of effective self-management including motivation, self-starting, individual initiative and enterprise.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures introduce key concepts and the consulting process. Seminars provide opportunities to develop skills by working on a number of aspects of the consulting process. Students will draw on their learning from other modules to enable them to tackle problematic issues brought forward by client organisations in the form of group consulting projects which form one component of the summative assessment. Tutorials will allow staff to work with students engaged in the projects and also allow students to support each other in an action learning approach. A final workshop provides the opportunity for students to present their work to staff and clients and obtain feedback. There is also an individual summative assignment in which students reflect critically on the group project and its implementation.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

Group presentation of project proposal and project plan.