Manage scope effectively to stay productive
Consulting work is ambiguous. It's hard to say when enough is enough. Consultants work crazy hours. Project scope tends to inflate over time, making consultants' lives even harder.
What if you could manage scope effectively?
Then, you could stay productive and protect your work-life balance.
You can be more successful working less.
It seems counterintuitive but achievable.
A common mistake
Often, junior consultants show signs of distress when they have a large scope.
They get overwhelmed. They panic. They worry about how they can deliver that huge scope.
Then, they start bothering leadership, asking to clarify everything.
It annoys leaders. Most likely, they don't know how to do it either.
But they know that they will figure it out over time.
As a result, consultants create these 'junior' or 'inexperienced' vibes.
Eventually, consultants will receive development feedback: 'ramp up faster,' 'become standalone,' and 'structure problems well.'
Consultants are clueless about where this feedback is coming from. Then they go on a wild goose chase, fixing symptoms rather than root causes.
Capacity and Backlog
Instead, think of yourself as a resource with limited capacity. Your capacity is constrained by time and your skills.
Then, think of your project scope as a backlog.
You focus your capacity on the most important things. Over time, you work through the backlog from top to bottom.
If a new scope appears, you re-prioritize and do your best work, focusing on the most important tasks.
Pace yourself while doing that. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
You have much more work than you can do in one day or week. Protect your mental capacity to stay productive in the long run.
If you don't finish everything in the backlog, that's ok. Leaders will not blame you if you have focused on the most important things and delivered substantial outputs.
If you are an MBB consultant and want to achieve high performance, book a free 1-1 consultation to discuss how exactly I can help you. There is no commitment, and you can ask any burning questions you might have.
Pushbacks are counterproductive
Another common mistake is pushing back on new scope additions.
There is a myth in the consulting community that you must learn to push back.
I myself used to think that the ability to push back was a badass skill.
As a high-performing manager, I often disagreed with partners and pushed back. I felt pretty good.
It took me many years to realize that pushing back was counterproductive.
For example, I can't remember a single issue I disagreed about with my partners. But I vividly remember every relationship that went sour.
Partners are humans. Nobody likes to be pushed back.
They can tolerate it and pretend it is okay but don't like it. And building strong relationships is hard when people don't like how you treat them.
Strong relationships are essential for career progression in consulting.
Don't get me wrong.
I don't say you need to brown-nose leadership and agree with everything they say. I only ask you to consider human nature. And how you do it is also important.
Priorities and negotiations
Effective scope management requires creating transparency on your priorities and negotiating them with leadership.
Then, when a new random task appears, ask where it falls in the current priority list. What other tasks must be deprioritized if the new one has the highest priority?
It should sound like this: "I can do anything but can't do everything. I can do only 1-2 things today with high quality. What should I drop or postpone from my priority list?"
Make sure it doesn't sound too defensive. Be curious and collaborative. Show that you want to solve problems effectively.
Explore different options. See if you can postpone something or not do it at all. It's rare that all things are equally important and must be done immediately.
But working crazy hours and pulling all-nighters should not be your default options. Unfortunately, consultants make these decisions lightly.
If done well, this approach works in most situations. Reasonable leadership will understand that fragmentation will only reduce effectiveness.
They wouldn't want to jeopardize the delivery of truly important priorities. So they have to make these tough prioritization choices together with you.
Consultants hesitate to have these conversations with leadership. They are afraid to look too junior or needy. But actually, that indicates the opposite.
Unfortunately, sometimes, this technique might not work with unreasonable people.
They demand everything immediately. They might say: 'Don't kill yourself, but these slides should be ready by tomorrow morning.'
In this case, you can push back and say you can't do it. Most likely, it is not a realistic scenario for you. It depends on your confidence level and how much goodwill you have created.
Or suck it up and do it. In this case, you will likely lose in the long term. It's ok to do it once or twice, but it's not sustainable to do it all the time.
Unfortunately, I don't have silver bullets for these scenarios. The only reliable approach is to learn to work exceptionally well.
A cycle of scope management
To be a high-performing consultant, it is crucial to understand these key relationships.
Manage Scope > Focus > Wins > Confidence > Manage Scope
Managing scope effectively will allow you to focus your work on impactful things.
Focusing will allow you to do your best and achieve your next wins.
These wins will give you more confidence and leadership trust.
More confidence will allow you to manage scope even more effectively.
It can become either a vicious or virtuous cycle for you. The choice is yours.
Going through the consulting journey alone is extremely difficult. I would’ve never achieved high performance without great mentors helping me.
That is why I developed a coaching program for MBB consultants to help them transform and achieve high performance in 12 months.
If you are an MBB consultant sick of being stressed, anxious, and lost, I would like to speak with you.
Book a Free 1-1 Consultation to discuss whether I can help you through my coaching program. There is no commitment, and you can ask any burning questions.
Read this post to learn more about the Hero’s Journey coaching program.