How to Select an External Service Provider For Change Management?

How to select an external service provider for change management? Do you need a change management consultant, an interim manager or contract resource, or some other option?

In my view, issuing a written "Request for proposal" to potential service providers and inviting submission of a written proposal followed by interviews of the selected few is a waste of time.

It is not possible to do anything other than provide a generic "cut and paste" response to this type of enquiry. There are always factors and issues that are not apparent in a document and with change management this is especially true.

Here is how I do it:

Speak with potential service providers, give them a high level briefing and have a discussion with them - on the phone initially. See if they talk sense, ask the right questions and seem to have a good intuitive grasp of your issues, and assess the personal chemistry.

Provision of information

If you both feel it is worth proceeding to the next step invite them for a meeting and email them a non-disclosure /confidentiality agreement to sign then email them the output of your latest strategic review or any other relevant documentation.

Preliminary analysis FOC

If you both feel that it is worth proceeding, then rather than requesting proposal invite them to spend the time they would otherwise spend preparing written submissions in undertaking a brief on site preliminary analysis - with a clear brief from you and allowing them to meet a cross section of key people involved. There should be no charge for this but you cover their pre-agreed out of pocket expenses.

Debriefing

The "deliverable" to you is a face to face to debriefing and one [2 maximum] sheets of A4 summarising their assessment. Then if you they feel they can help you and vice versa then, and only then, do they prepare a succinct proposal addressing the first and most obvious step - with an outline only of possible following steps.

Developing a mutuality of interest

The benefit to you is that you don't pay them to understand your business, you get to see them in action and to decide if you want to work with them, and they get to see if they can help you and if they want to.

Then, if both parties are happy, contract them to implement the agreed first and most obvious step. Then, if both parties are still happy, hire them for the duration of the assignment, and if needs dictate, beyond that.

The key to this approach is that it is organic and incremental; it most closely mirrors the way that relationships develop naturally in "real-life" and it allows for the development of a mutuality of interest.