Consulting Discovery Masterclass

The live session will cover:

• Introduction to the concept of active listening and empathy in communication
• The different axes of listening – person-focussed, feelings vs facts, coaching vs directing

Students will also need to go through the following digital modules for BCMC-101 before the next session.

BCMC-101

The online videos in this module are designed to enable delegates to understand the end-to-end processes involved in the Consulting Engagement lifecycle.

What will it give you?

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• Understand the Consulting Engagement process
• Become familiar with the key stakeholders within a Client engagement
• Understand the business reasons for when a Consulting engagement may prove valuable
• Identify the stages of the consulting and project delivery
• Become familiar with project team roles & responsibilities
• Categorise different project delivery methodologies
• Understand the Consulting preferred approach
• Be familiar with the different roles within the project team 

What will this module cover?

This is the Consulting Engagement and Project Delivery module, where delegates will be introduced to the world of Software Consulting.

1. Introduction to Consulting
2. The client and key stakeholders
3. The Project team
4. Consulting Engagement – from the Sales & Delivery point of view
5. Delivery Methodology
   • Waterfall
   • Agile
   • Hybrid & the Scrum framework

6. Staff Augmentation – Complementing the Client’s team
7. Roles & responsibilities of each team member
8. Group dynamics and walking through a full project life cycle

The live session will cover:

• Practicing active listening in a role-play skills practice in interacting with a stakeholder
• Learning how to de-escalate potential conflict situations
• Understanding the different Socratic question types
• Solving the Case of the Dead Fish

Students will also need to go through the following digital modules for BCMC-102 before the next session.

BCMC-102

These videos enable delegates to deep dive into the mechanics of  running effective Discovery and requirement gathering workshops, and including crucial session on Active Listening Skills as well as role plays and skills practice.

What will it give you?

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• Understand the mechanics of running an effective meeting / workshop
• Generate questions to try and understand current business processes

What will this module cover?

This module covers the ins and outs of running requirements gathering workshops, including the following:

1.     Running effective Meetings & Workshops
2.     Training vs Facilitation
3.     Workshop Facilitation Framework
4.     Running Discovery Workshops – planning agenda, schedule and expected deliverable

The live session will cover:

• Introducing the Primer on creating process maps
• Understanding the golden rules of mapping processes
• Being able to spot the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in process maps
• Reviewing examples of what Good looks like
• Review video of The Holey Donut sales process

Students will also need to go through the following digital modules for BCMC-103 before the next session.

BCMC-103

These videos enable delegates to deep dive into the mechanics of running effective Discovery and requirement gathering workshops, and including crucial session on Active Listening Skills as well as role plays and skills practice.

What will it give you?

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• Understand how to approach questions and problems
• Evaluate the different ways of thinking about things
• Understand the mechanics of running an effective meeting / workshop
• Analyse current state and articulate those processes using diagrams and flow-charts within process maps
• Applying that understanding with knowledge of what could be possible in a future (to-be) system state and illustrating that with process maps 

What will this module cover?

This module covers the ins and outs of running process mapping workshops, to outline current as-is business process maps and articulate future states.

1.     Critical Thinking – what is it
2.     Questioning sources of beliefs
3.     Overview of As-Is and To-Be Process Mapping
   • Process mapping in business
   • Mechanics of process mappings
   • Key workshop activities
   • Optimising processes into new to-be processes

The live session will cover:

• Reviewing students process flows and user stories from The Holey Donut case study video
• Practicing questioning and requirements gathering in a role-play skills practice for a University Admissions process

Students will also need to go through the following digital modules for BCMC-104 before the next session.

BCMC-104

This module is designed to enable delegates to understand the mechanics of gathering writing design documents, user stories, and acceptance criteria.

What will it give you?

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• Understand the structure of a Business Requirement Document or Design Document
• Understand how to write user stories
• Evaluate the level of detail of user stories necessary for consulting project costing
• Write robust quality acceptance criteria for test cases

What will this course cover?

1.   Documenting Requirements
2.  Structure of Design Documents
3.  Principles of Writing Epics and User Stories
4.  Developing User stories
5.  Writing Acceptance Criteria

The live session will cover:

• Reviewing students' process flows and user stories from the School Admissions process
• Exercises practising creating user stories and acceptance criteria for a consulting engagement
• Practicing questioning and requirements gathering in a role-play skills practice for the mobile Sales App for BikeCo

Students will also need to go through the following digital modules for BCMC-105 before the next session.

BCMC-105

There are lots of courses on presentation skills; this intensive workshop is directed specifically to the needs of consultants and other professional service providers, who are critically judged on the quality of their presentations.

Consultants are expected to have very polished presentation skills they call on

• to pitch to clients during pre-sales or bids,
• to persuade clients of the recommended solutions,
• to run workshops and training sessions,
• … and in many other situations. 

What will it give you?

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• Review the basic skills of presenting show & tell
• Understand the techniques of planning presentations for different situations and audiences
• Confidently prepare and deliver powerful presentations, and show & tells utilising presentation techniques

What will this module cover?

1. Principles of Delivering Show & Tells
2. Identifying ‘Done’ User Stories and creating a narrative
3. Role play and exercises
   • Planning, preparing and delivering Show & Tell
   • Practising presentation skills

The live session will cover:

• Reviewing students process flows and user stories for Sales App for BikeCo
• Viewing example model answers for consulting documentation and deliverables
• Picking and working on final assignment to present a show & tell, outlining process maps and writing user stories.

Students will prepare for a final presentation and deliver a Show & Tell as a project team.

The live session will cover:

• Reviewing students’ assignments to provide show & tell, user stories and process maps for their app of choice.

Final Q&A on the discovery process