Summary
Hiring a consultant is no different from hiring talent: you need to look both for hard and soft skills if you want a successful and fruitful relationship. The most commonly used selection criteria, visual impact of the portfolio, same-industry experience, results achieved and price competitiveness don’t necessarily help to make a better selection. This presentation contains samples of the three key skills to look for, how they were critical in project success, and how to look for these skills in a consultancy.
Key Insights
-
•
Hiring for strategy requires different criteria than hiring for execution; knowing if you need 'brains' or 'hands' is fundamental.
-
•
Evaluating agencies based on portfolio visuals or industry experience is inadequate for strategic hires.
-
•
Price is a misleading criterion; paying more doesn’t guarantee better strategic outcomes.
-
•
Choosing partnership over vendor-ship leads to more valuable and insightful collaborations.
-
•
A strategic partner challenges client assumptions to find better solutions rather than just delivering requested outputs.
-
•
The biggest project challenge is not the solution but its company-wide adoption and buy-in.
-
•
Bridging gaps between departments or teams is a vital strategic skill for successful implementation.
-
•
Flexibility means aligning on goals despite different methodologies, not blindly following client processes.
-
•
Big picture thinking reveals obstacles as opportunities and drives innovative solutions.
-
•
Interview and proposal evaluations should focus on qualitative cues such as leadership, value delivery, and adaptability, rather than just technical skills.
Notable Quotes
"You can’t expect strategic work from even the most experienced set of hands."
"A vendor provides a service, but a partner delivers value."
"Are you willing to do something different from your original idea?"
"The biggest challenge of a project is building a solution that’s going to be adopted company wide."
"Flexibility is not about using the same methodologies. Flexibility is about moving together towards the same goal."
"Success is not about integration. Success is about not sacrificing quality."
"You need to be listening for leadership and how they have navigated a project beyond just the solution."
"Big picture thinkers create unexpected paths and bring new solutions to your project."
"Focusing on the visual impact of a portfolio is not going to tell you much when hiring for strategy."
"Companies prefer agencies with the same industry experience because they recognize the value it brings, but in the end, what matters is expertise."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"If designers spend more time talking about titles than their work, we’re just gazing into our navels."
Adam Cutler Karen Pascoe Ian Swinson Susan WorthmanDiscussion
June 8, 2016
"Sometimes the director is the most senior design person in the org and ends up playing the executive role without the title or support."
Peter MerholzThe Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX (Videoconference)
July 13, 2023
"In the automotive industry, most safety standards only became mandatory after governments intervened."
Lisa WelchmanCleaning Up Our Mess: Digital Governance for Designers
June 14, 2018
"Every small action contributes to a larger impact in the fight against climate change."
Vincent BrathwaiteOpener: Past, Present, and Future—Closing the Racial Divide in Design Teams
October 22, 2020
"If you forget the individual, you cut out psychological safety, and that’s the foundation of strong teams."
Brenna FallonLearning Over Outcomes
October 24, 2019
"Factory owners manipulated people’s time so much that workers were afraid to carry a watch."
Tricia WangSpatial Collapse: Designing for Emergent Culture
January 8, 2024
"Creating hypotheses from pain points with measurable success criteria helped prioritize which to pursue."
Edgar Anzaldua MorenoUsing Research to Determine Unique Value Proposition
March 11, 2021
"Our brains are terrible at operating only on one type of information, whether object-oriented or context-oriented."
Designing Systems at Scale
November 7, 2018
"Ethics evolve faster than law; just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical."
Erin WeigelGet Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
July 24, 2024
