, 2007). The more I understand about the strategic objectives that senior management has for the project, the more I will be able to tailor that project to meet their objectives. This in turn leads to a high degree of support at the highest levels of the organization for my work. I feel that this is critical, and emphasize this in my consulting.
There are, however, some areas where I can improve my consulting skills as well. For example, I do not always make the best use of ongoing consulting arrangements. This is a valuable source of income for a consultant, but I often either fail to pursue it or when I do I am unable to set out terms that are beneficial to me. For example, I should make use of formal contracts and service level agreements (Goo, et al., 2009), but I think the ones that I have traditionally used are poorly written. This leads to demands on me that offer a poor rate of return on my time, relative to other functions. I have probably failed to capture as much income from ongoing customer relationships as I could as a result.
All told, however, I have been quite successful in my consulting career and I attribute that to a combination of technical skills and listening skills. Being able to understand customer needs and meet them is essential, and strong listening skills ensure that I avoid getting into a death march situation. I feel that given more business acumen and more resources, I would be able to...
I feel that my ability to relate well to clients, IT professionals, and senior management gives me a lot of potential to success long-run as an IT consultant.
Again, my methodologies are not necessarily structured, and I feel that is a benefit to me as it allows me to be flexible in my approach. Even though a lot of my work is similar, I believe that taking the flexible approach in how I deal with situations allows me to derive better solutions, as I am not so rigid in my approach to solving problems. Overall, I feel that I am quite effective as a consultant, and I intend to continue improving in order to improve my business.
Works Cited:
Choo, C. (2001). Environmental scanning as information seeking and organizational learning. Information Research. Vol. 7 (1) Retrieved December 12, 2011 from http://informationr.net/ir/7-1/paper112.html
Ferreira, A., Santos, G., Cerqueira, R, Montoni, M, Barreto, A. & Rocha, A. (2007). Applying ISO 9001:2000, MPS.BR, and CMMI to achieve software process maturity: BL Informatica's pathway. Software Engineering. ICSE 2007, 29th International Conference.
Goo, J., Kishore, R., Rao, H. & Nam, K. (2009). The role of service level agreements in relational management of information technology outsourcing: An empirical study. MIS Quarterly. Vol. 33 (1) 119-145.
