Re: Developing centres of expertise in a consulting firm

Saar Ben-Attar,

> I have been put in place of driving the development of Centres of
Expertise
> (CoE's) at a mid-sized consulting firm, for which I work.

One problem is that you have the responsibility but not the authority. For a
team project of this nature to work, there has to be support from the
executive level in your organization. If you boss, or your boss's boss,
wants to see this work, then they have to support the program by letting
your coworkers know that their participation in the program is mandatory.

> Ten centres were identified, of which, after a few months of work (only
the
> last two under my direction), one center is nearing competion, another two
> have made progress and the others are far behind, some not even past the
> start line.
>
> We defined a working (successful) CoE as:

This all sounds a bit dry. Work isn't supposed to be boring, and a project
such as this shouldn't drag on forever. Is there anybody there with some
experience in facilitation? You'd be surprised at how much work can be
accomplished by a team at a brainstorming session, using methods such as the
Ishikawa Diagram, Poster Boarding, etc.

By the way, does this project have a budget? You may need to bring in some
outside help. (Being consultants, yourselves, you must see the value in
that.)

Good Luck!

Mike