That’s a question I frequently field from the executives and HR partners I support. I hope you’ve asked that question for yourself as well, because it means developing your team is high on your radar. I’ve shared the key skills of coaching as well as my favorite coaching conversational model GROW. That said, a new question arises, which is when should you coach and when shouldn’t you?

If you get this question wrong, you’re likely to either confuse your team or neglect to use your coaching skills to their maximum effectiveness. But if you get it right, you’ll grow as a coach and so will your employees.

Here are three situations when you should not coach and five situations when you should.

You should NOT coach when…

Explicit directions are necessary – Coaching is the art of helping the employee take ownership of a situation and rise to the occasion. It’s not appropriate when you need to step into “take charge” mode – such as an emergency situation.

Your employee is too new to benefit – When employees are new, their biggest need is often to learn the expectations and specific situations they are walking into. It’s much more efficient to share this information upfront and begin coaching a little further down the road.

You have important information to pass along – Employees aren’t mind-readers. If you are privy to information that will effect the outcome of an action they take, always share it upfront.

You SHOULD coach when…

Brainstorming – If your employee needs an idea, take a minute to brainstorm together. Resist solving the problem on your own.

Planning – If your employee will be leading a project or initiative, coach through the planning process. Start with their ideas first before giving yours.

Giving After-Action Feedback – As your employees perform in new ways, you’ll need to provide feedback on how they’re doing. Start with their own assessment of their performance – what went well and what they’d like to do better next time. Then augment with your own.

Decision-making – Help your employees think through how to make a tough decision rather than simply telling what to do – or even what you would do as your default response.

Development Planning – Unfortunately this area often falls off the radar for many leaders altogether. When they do commit to helping their employees develop, they often simply tell them what they need to work on. Instead, take the time to understand their career and development goals and ask for their development goals first.

Coaching your employees takes extra time… at the beginning. But keep it up and you’ll save the time back as your employees execute without your active involvement.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader. Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or follow him on Twitter.

I’ve thought about that scenario quite a few times since then. There have been occasions where I was clearly out of my league at work. As a young consultant, I struggled so much with the ambiguity of my role that I was frequently unable to sleep at night. I didn’t know what I didn’t know – and worse, I didn’t know who I could ask for help since I was expected to perform anyway. I didn’t want to be like the woman in the first NGO: a friendly and enthusiastic person who couldn’t be taken seriously as a professional.

Expertise isn’t the only critical factor in getting a job done, but it certainly is one of them. In its absence, ideas can’t “tip,” planning gets skewed and results suffer.

Not all of us are required to be the ultimate expert on any given day, but some of us are. Regardless, any expertise you can acquire will go a long way. Here are six ways to build your expertise – regardless of your field.

Learn from the True Experts

The ideal source of expertise is the people who already possess it. An old proverb states, “Walk with the wise and become wise.” If you are proactive, you may be able to find an opportunity to work or partner with an expert. Otherwise, learn all you can from their thought leadership.

Learn from Best Practice

For virtually every process or function, there are many accessible best practices – for things as simple as leading meetings or as complicated as evaluating learning programs. For critical items, never start from scratch when you have access to existing best practices from people who have already been where you’re trying to go.

Learn from Experience

If you don’t accumulate new experiences, your expertise will grow stale. Try new things – and be careful to evaluate as you go. Soon you’ll be able to articulate your own best practices that can serve as a guide for the future.

Learn from Experimentation

It’s not enough to try new things, we also need to try old things in new ways. Otherwise we operate only from memory instead of curiosity. As author and businessman Bob Buford says, “As long as we breathe, it is never too late in life to discover a better way.”

Enlist Your Team

I’m convinced that teamwork is the greatest untapped competitive advantage of the 21st century. That’s another discussion, but in terms of expertise, be careful to include the thoughts, insights and feedback of others in any important endeavor – regardless if they are superiors, peers or subordinates. Even if everyone lacks true expertise, multiple sources of input can make a solution better than it otherwise would have been.

Pass it On

One of the best ways to hone expertise is to pass it on. In fact, some have made the case that you don’t truly understand something until you can teach it to others. Don’t wait until you’re a full-blown expert to teach someone else – start where you are.

At the end of the day, there’s some good news. You are almost assuredly already to expert to someone else. That means you have a meaningful opportunity to contribute what you know. Just don’t stop there. There are so many more opportunities to learn, grow and share.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

I heard these words from an executive at a leadership event a couple weeks ago. His frustrations weren’t anything new. Why can’t employees take more initiative to solve organizational problems?

It’s a common question with a wide variety of possible answers. Unfortunately, we usually get the level of initiative we reinforce. Let’s take a closer look at what initiative really means – and how to inspire the initiative you need to be effective.

6 Levels of Initiative

In his thought leadership on management, William Oncken introduced several levels of initiative a person can take in a given circumstance. It’s quite a wide range. Take a look:

1. Wait until told (lowest level)
2. Ask what to do
3. Recommend a course of action and then act after approval
4. Act and report immediately
5. Act and report periodically
6. Act independently and report if asked (highest level)

Determine the Level Needed

If you’re in the same boat as the executive mentioned above, you probably looked at this list and immediately identified the level preferred. If not, that’s where you need to start. There is a huge difference between level one and level six. We often bemoan a lack of initiative, but depending on the business situation, taking too much initiative can actually be extremely damaging. And don’t forget to factor in your own preference for hands-on or hands-off management.

Communicate Expectations

Once you’re clear on the level of initiative you desire, you need to communicate it explicitly to your employee(s). Until you do, nothing has actually changed. And be sure to differentiate between tasks and situations. Some tasks you may want to be asked about and others you may expect your employee to take care of himself.

As a young consultant, I was often intimidated by the client leaders I supported. They had experience and authority. I didn’t have much of either. But my bosses gave me explicit expectations that my job was to come to the table with recommendations. Regardless of how uncomfortable I felt at times, I knew it was my responsibility to deliver. (This is probably one reason why I now encourage everyone who wants to increase their influence to do the same).

There is no benefit of the doubt when it comes to expectations. Unclear expectations are always costly.

Adjust as Necessary

Aside from results, one of your chief duties as a manager is to develop talent. Let’s face it, if your talent doesn’t grow, neither will you. As your employees’ capacity expands, adjust (and communicate) the expectations for their initiative higher. Take it step by step. Development levels are often different between employees – but each will grow with your support.

When we don’t give more initiative, unskilled employees become stunted and skilled employees start looking for opportunities elsewhere.

The next time you wish an employee would take more initiative, you have the opportunity to turn your focus inward. Do you know what level of initiative you want? Have you communicated clearly? Do you need to adjust? Follow these steps and you’ll see your team’s productivity spike.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Forbes reported recently that as many as two million employees quit their jobs each month. One of the most significant reasons: they dislike their bosses.

It’s only fair to acknowledge that some managers earn their scorn. I should know, one of my jobs as an organizational development consultant is to help make bosses better bosses. I suppose if everyone was already excellent, I’d have less to do. But it’s only fair to give credit where it’s due. So let’s take a closer look at the great things bosses do.

Provide Direction

If you’ve ever been a newbie (and who hasn’t?), you probably remember the excitement at taking on a new opportunity. Unfortunately, it quickly turned into disillusionment when you realized how much you didn’t know about how to get the job done. Enter the boss. A little fog-clearing direction and you are on your way to making a meaningful contribution.

Share Knowledge & Experience

In many cases, bosses have been further down the road. That’s usually one of the reasons they’re in the role. Just one quick tip or tweak can save an incredible amount of time, effort and money (not to mention grief).

Help Us Develop

Not all bosses have a development mindset, but the good ones absolutely do. Whether it’s helping to complete an Individual Development Plan, evaluating a past project or designating development dollars in the department budget, every little bit counts.

Protect Us from Management

There are many bosses I served in the military with who I’ll never forget (for better or worse). One of the things I appreciated most about one former Army supervisor was his willingness to fight the bureaucracy on our collective behalf when in some cases it would’ve been easier to just go with the flow. The effort wasn’t lost on any of us regardless of the results.

Represent Us to Management

In recent times, a boss’s word was considered to be the “voice of God” in the organization. It’s not that cut and dried any more. Nevertheless, it is still extremely hard for good things to happen in the organization without a boss’s support. Bosses have the access to bring your name up when new opportunities are being discussed. Their vote can often get you much further than you could ever get on your own.

Solve Our Problems

If you’ve ever screwed things up royally, your boss may be the last person you want to face. Fortunately, he or she is usually the best person to help you make things right. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the time I sent $77 million to the wrong bank as a recent college grad. I was in a pickle and didn’t have much of a choice but to ask my boss for help before things got worse. Not only did my boss help me resolve the situation relatively quickly and painlessly, he helped me save face in the process by emphasizing the complexity of the situation rather than my own oversight. Thank God for bosses!

One final note – many people assume that if they could just work for themselves, they’d forever solve the boss problem. It’s not always true. In his book Creative Followership, Jimmy Collins recounts the realization of his own limitations as a self-employed individual. He finally made the decision to fire himself and find a better boss who could provide the opportunities and support he needed.

I hope you’ve got a great boss. Regardless, let’s give credit where it’s due. Bosses do so much for us. We’d be a lot worse off without them.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

And how do we get more leaders in our organizations?

In order to figure that out, we’ve got to start by defining what leadership is begin with.

Let’s Define Leadership

If we all sat down together and tried to answer the question: “what makes someone a leader?” we’d probably be at it for quite a while. Whenever I ask a group of managers, inevitably they respond with notions such as: someone who sets vision, communicates well, behaves ethically, executes, and a wide variety of other responses. They’re all good answers, but if leadership entails everything, how can we actually differentiate between a leader and a non-leader?

I’ve come to use a simple definition of leadership. Here it is:

A leader is someone who: has influence and creates change.

That’s it. That’s how we can tell who the leaders are. Here’s the good news: this is an all-inclusive list. Not everyone is a leader, but everyone can become one by using the influence they have to create positive change right where they are. That means we can have leaders behind the counter just like we can in the C-suite. We can have leaders on the front lines as well as leaders at headquarters. Not everyone has the same level of influence or scope for change. But everyone can do something. Leaders make the difference.

Who Do Leaders Lead?

So who do leaders lead? These are the three groups:

Self: It may sound odd to say that leaders lead themselves, but that’s where it begins. Leadership begins by being proactive and accepting the responsibility to create change and deliver the results one’s self is responsible for. Leaders take the responsibility to know their strengths and weaknesses and make a personal development plan to increase their growth and thereby their performance – without waiting for someone else to do it for them.

Others: After leaders accept responsibility for themselves, they can accept responsibility for others. This doesn’t necessarily mean managing others, but simply playing a role in using their influence to create positive changes for others. Team members are the best places to begin. Everyone has different strengths, personality styles, knowledge, skills and experiences. Leaders recognize and maximize opportunities to use theirs to benefit others. (My whole ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor focuses on how anyone can do this). And if you don’t have anyone on your team you can develop, find a way to develop someone else on another team.

Organization: Did you ever stop to think that each person in the organization can do something to make things better for everyone? Obviously, major decisions from the top can drastically change the organizational reality for each person. But one process improvement, enhancement or good idea that is shared and implemented can accomplish the same. Where someone is doesn’t matter. What they make of things does.

It’s not enough to tell your followers that all of them are leaders and then move on. We’ve got to let them know what a leader looks like and then who they can lead – and how. If you think only the folks at the top of your organization are leaders, that’s all you’ll get. But if you build from the ground up, tomorrow’s leaders will start coming to you today.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

Why Ask Questions?

Many leaders hesitate to ask questions because they fear it will make them appear weak. Leaders are suppose to have the all the answers, right? Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the world we live in has become so complex that it is simply not possible for anyone to have all the answers, no matter how tenured he or she is. But there are all kinds of benefits to asking questions, regardless of how much you know. Here are a few:

Great questions lead to great discoveries. Author and consultant Bobb Biehl likes to say, “If you ask profound questions, you get profound answers. If you ask shallow questions, you get shallow answers. If you ask no questions, you get no answers at all.”

Great questions are the antidote to advice. Our own advice can be intelligent and fitting sometimes, but lousy or misinformed other times. Giving advice is easy and costs little, at least on the surface. In organizational settings however, a leader’s advice can quickly gets translated into a “direct order” with no room for further discussion.

Great questions develop the critical thinking skills of others. If you’re a leader, the critical thinking skills of your team will likely determine how far you go. When you give answers, you get followers. When you give questions (and coach through the process of determining the best answer), you develop leaders.

Great questions delegates responsibility. At the end of the day, if you’re the person everyone comes to with every problem, your leadership bar will remain low. Leaders need followers who can solve problems on their own. And keep in mind that a person is always more motivated to act on and own a solution he’s come up with himself than to follow the guidance of someone else.

What do Great Questions Look Like?

It’s true that most leaders don’t become great at asking questions until they become great at listening (something that should cause each of us to pause and consider). There’s a learning process for everything. But in the meantime, let’s consider some examples of what great, powerful questions look like.

Leading vs. Non-Leading Questions: A leading question proposes a solution in the form of a question. A non-leading question opens up the possibility for multiple solutions. Consider the differences between these two examples.

• Leading: “What would happen if you tried having training meetings on Tuesdays?”
• Non-Leading: “What are some different options for conducting training?”

Closed vs. Open-ended Questions: Closed questions require a “yes” or “no” answer while open-ended questions can have many outcomes.

• Closed: “Have you thought about creating a new task force?”
• Open-ended: “What are some ways you could approach this challenge?”

Advice vs. Possibility Questions: An advice question is basically just implied advice in the form of a question.

• Advice: “Couldn’t you address that situation with the sales rep directly?”
• Possibility: “How could you address that situation?”

Why vs. “Tell Me More” Questions: Why questions can feel abrasive and accusatory, regardless of intent. No one likes being interrogated. Using a “tell me more” approach opens up the dialogue.

• Why: “Why did you decide to ship only seven orders?”
• Tell me more: “Can you tell me more about the thought process for this shipment?”

Learning to ask great questions instead of giving advice is probably one of the hardest disciplines leaders encounter. (It’s right up there with active listening!) I know by personal experience and from conducting training with seasoned leaders. The first step is to stop yourself from giving unsolicited advice. The next step is to respond with a question. The final step is to make that question a powerful one. My encouragement is to give it a try and stick with it. Ask someone to give you feedback on your question-asking ability. It’ll be slow at first, but eventually start becoming natural. And the leaders you serve will develop right along with you.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Mark Miller developed the SERVE model and curriculum and collaborated with Ken Blanchard to publish it in their book The Secret. Each member of our small team presented a portion of the model. I’ll summarize it for you here below.

See & Shape the Future

The first thing leaders must do is be able to envision a future that is somehow different than (and an improvement on) what exists today. Think about it: if the status quo is just fine, then leaders are unnecessary. Next, leaders must be able to communicate the vision to those around them and work proactively to shape the course. After all, nothing happens without someone going first.

Engage and Develop Others

In the course of pursuing any vision, leaders must find a way to engage the people around them so that they are “in it” for themselves, not just falling in line. When followers are engaged, they know what’s in it for them and they also know where they fit in the broader scheme of things. There are many visions out there to follow. Giving your followers the chance to grow is one of the best ways to ensure they choose your vision over the rest.

Reinvent Continuously

The “what” of the vision won’t change (if it does, then it’s a new vision), but the how is always subject to change. Change is often painful but it’s necessary. When times are bad, change is easy – in the sense that there is not much choice involved. Either change or suffer the consequences. It’s much more difficult to embrace a change mindset when things are going well. That’s why constant improvement requires leadership to stay disciplined and look for ways to make things better.

Value Results and Relationships

The brilliant thing about this principle is that it makes results and relationships mutually inclusive vs. exclusive. Instead of pursuing one at the expense of the other, a vision is best served when a high value is placed on both. Many leaders tend to lean in one direction over another. That’s okay as long as there are other leaders to help provide balance, but the most successful teams find ways to win together – as a team.

Embody the Values

According to Mark Miller, someone who embodies the values exemplifies the non-negotiable elements that comprise the organization’s culture. When there is a disconnect between what a leader says and what they do, not only is credibility lost, but so is most of the motivation to follow. Trust is the ultimate foundation for any successful relationship, especially the relationship a leader has with followers. It only works when values, words and actions all point in the same direction.

You’ve probably noticed by now that the main focus of the SERVE model is always other people. A self-serving leader just won’t make it very far. Zig Ziglar famously said that you can have anything you want it you will just help enough other people get what they want. Will you join me in looking for new ways to SERVE?

If you’d like to assess your ability to lead according to this SERVE model, take this assessment from the author’s site.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

There a lots of options out there. The best strategy is to take a integrated approach to learning across five broad categories. Here they are.

On-the-Job Experience

The majority of employee learning comes from on-the-job experience. That is where the most time is spent. In fact, you could argue that until someone performs on the job, he or she hasn’t fully learned the job yet. This doesn’t mean that all time spent at a job is learning-oriented. If you (or one of your employees) have become fully competent, it’s probably time for a new challenge.

What are you learning in your current role?

Formal Learning

Formal learning comes from classes, courses, modules, company programs, learning events and more. Courses are typically taken in a classroom with an instructor, in an online learning system or self-paced. Organizational training departments usually spend the majority of their efforts creating these kinds of formal learning opportunities or bringing in outside vendors.

What formal learning programs are you utilizing?

Development Activities

Development activities are informal learning opportunities. They may be directed by an employee or by someone close to them, like a supervisor. These activities are essentially limitless, such as reading a book, attending a networking event or professional club, joining a cross-functional team or just learning something new. Adept organizations invest in a development library with a menu of options to select from depending on developmental goals.

What are your developmental goals?

Assessment Feedback

There are many, many assessments to help employees identify and diagnose their strengths and preferences. Personality assessments, like MBTI and DiSC are very popular, as is Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment. You might take a 360 degree assessment to get feedback from your team. There are assessments for learning styles, job fit, team fit, leadership, etc. You can also find effectiveness assessments from thought leaders and organizations (like these from Mark Miller). Most of us also receive a periodic performance assessment in the form of an annual review. Assessments tell us something we may not have considered and help direct our development goals.

What assessment feedback have you gotten recently?

Other People

Other people can often be the greatest source of learning. Supervisors, mentors, co-workers, network members, friends, family – virtually anyone can teach us something or give us valuable feedback, if we’ll let them.

Who have you learned from recently?

So, what’s your learning plan? And if you are a supervisor, how are you supporting your employee’s development needs? There are all kinds of options out there. Pick one and give it a shot!

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Following are six specific ways many organizations have traditionally thought about training – with a culture “shift” for each one.

Learning takes place during training events.

Shift: Learning takes place before, during and after training events – as well as on the job and after hours.

Gone are the days when training is simply viewed as a “vacation” from actual work. With attitudes like this, it’s no wonder management got so eager to cut training budgets. Make sure employees understand that they must complete pre-work assignments before arriving at the learning event so they are prepared to engage with the content as soon as the events begins. Have a follow-up plan. Even more importantly, help them understand the importance of learning through experiences on the job – as well as from external sources.

The instructor is the expert.

Shift: Everyone is an expert: facilitators, self and peers.

If the instructor is the only expert, the purpose of a learning event will be to simply download the information from the instructor to the participants. If everyone is an expert, the facilitator operates as more of a guide and participants learn from assessing their own experiences and from collaborating with the content and with others – both inside and outside of the event.

The organization is responsible for each person’s development.

Shift: Everyone is responsible for own their development and for sharing what they know with others. The organization is responsible for supporting development via the learning infrastructure.

If only the organization is ultimately responsible for the development of each employee, then employees will understandably take a passive role in the development process. On the other hand, if the organization plays a support role, each person must be a proactive participant in the process. The organization builds the system and the participants engage with the content, resources, and most importantly: each other (are you catching a trend for collaboration?).

Mistakes are unacceptable, so hide them.

Shift: Mistakes are unavoidable – so share and learn from both successes and failures. Encourage creative experimentation.

Some mistakes are truly unforgivable, especially if they involve safety, privacy, sensitive information or ethics. And yet they still occur. The worst response is to sweep them beneath the rug and pretend they never happened. This only ensures that the same mistakes will take place again in the future. Not only that, it damages an organization’s credibility with employees (and outside stakeholders) who know the mistakes happened. Many mistakes are not fatal. It takes guts to admit when we’re wrong, but it’s one of the most development-rich opportunities out there. Mistakes become examples of what not to do (again). Moreover, when there is freedom to fail, there is extra incentive to succeed. Truett Cathy once said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong… until we can learn to do it right.” When it comes to admitting mistakes, leaders ought to lead the way and go first. And if you are going to fail, take risks and fail in a training environment first.

Grades come from learning assessments.

Shift: “Grades” come from feedback of self, peer, trainers, supervisor and business results.

The ultimate grades of any learning event come in the form of business results. It’s not enough to give a right answer – you have to perform the correct action on the job. But the real catch is that often there is no “right” answer. Many decisions are situation-specific and don’t net a result until further down the road. And let’s not discount the value of feedback. Oftentimes we have a decent assessment of our own level of understanding. “I’ve got this,” or “I definitely don’t get this!” Peers, training staff and supervisors help provide additional insight that we can take or leave. Take them.

A passing grade completes training (emphasis on passing).

Shift: Development is never “complete” (emphasis on continual growth, mastery and collaboration).

Learning is only “pass/fail” in the classroom but never in real life. For some technical training events, a certain level of quantitative proficiency must be attained. I don’t want someone operating on my who hasn’t passed extensive competency assessments! But the learning is never over. A training event is simply a stepping stone on the path to mastery. Also, the most complete learner is not the one who knows the most, but the one who shares the most with others.

Which of these shifts does your organization need the most? What additional learning shifts would you add?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

“Well, I’m a consultant.”

“A consultant? But what do you actually do?”

This is a typical conversation whenever I meet anyone new – and not just me, but for most folks in my profession. I don’t know why, but it’s always been a little tricky to explain what, in fact, I do for a living. “I solve problems,” or “I help people clarify what they want,” or “I build management solutions” are typical responses. A past employer taught us to say, “I help clients move from issue to outcome, with pace, certainty and strategic agility.”

The truth is that I help management understand their needs and then help build solutions to meet those needs. Since my specialty is organizational and talent development, the types of needs I address are usually related to the people and leadership side of organizations. My colleagues in other specialties do the same thing, but with finance, marketing, customers, supply chains, technology or countless other areas.

Whether you are officially a “consultant” or are a specialist, program manager, project manager or just plain responsible for some type of organizational change, I’d like to introduce you to a basic consulting methodology. I often tell college students in a class I facilitate to “think like a consultant” and I believe this methodology can assist just about everyone. Here are the basic components with a basic synopsis for each one.

Analyze Phase

The first step with any new project is get the requirements. Whether your client or boss wants a new management program or a new software program, you need to figure out what specifications must be included. If you are tasked with building a new car, you need to know the requirements for fuel efficiency, safety features, speed, cost, and many other variables before you even think about beginning. For a people program, you need to know who will be a part of the program, budget, and desired outcomes of their experience – among other things. Once you get the requirements, you need to do what is referred to as “gap analysis” – which means you determine the current state and how it measures up with the desired future state. The solution will bridge the gap.

At this point, you’ll need to develop a basic approach plan that proposes such elements as options for potential solutions, steps you plan to take to build the solution, costs, timelines, and additional resources or people who will need to be involved. The main client will then provide input or make the necessary management decisions – and then you can proceed.

The penalties for skipping the Analyze phase are monumental: high probability of wasted effort, wasted time, wasted resources, rework, missed deadlines, broken promises, loss of engagement, cost overages and client (or customer) ire.

Design Phase

During the design phase, you essentially build an outline for the entire project. As with a writing project or presentation, you will likely begin with a rough outline from your basic plan and then progress to a detailed design outline for the project. When management wants to know what the solution will look like, you can show the design plans. Just like writing, it is much easier to make changes in the Design phase than down the road in the Develop phase.

Develop Phase

In the Develop phase, you take the design plans and start actually building out the content or application of the solution. If you are building a training course, you take the course outline and start building lesson plans. For a technology solution, you start writing actual code or building applications.

The Develop phase isn’t finished until the solution is essentially complete. Don’t forget to include user support materials, such as job aids, reference guides, manuals or online portals, as appropriate for the project.

Test Phase

Once the Develop phase is finished, the temptation is to rush to the Implement phase and finish up. But first, the solution needs to be tested. You wouldn’t want to own a smartphone that had never been tested before it was released to market. Your solution needs to be tested as well. For a learning solution or new management process, an appropriate test could be a pilot group. For a technology solution, it could be scenario testing with dummy (or real) data. Take the results from the tests to address outstanding issues so that you (and more importantly, your client) can have full confidence in a successful implementation.

Implement Phase

Implementation takes place when the solution is finally released. It can be referred to as “Delivery” or “Go-Live” as well. Once solutions are implemented, they can be extremely hard to change (depending on the type of solution). Depending on the type of solution, this phase may be a blanket switch or may be implemented in multiple degrees. Occasionally, consulting teams are not involved in delivery, which makes the transition process and reference materials that much more important.

Evaluation

Evaluation isn’t a stand-alone phase. It must be done for each step and on an ongoing basis. At the very least, you will want approval from your client to finish each phase, but there will likely be more evaluation than that. You’ll want to quantify the expected benefits before the solution and measure the actual benefits afterwards. Focus groups or validation by SMEs may be needed during the Design and Develop phases for large or complicated projects. For solutions that can be adjusted on an ongoing basis, continual feedback is helpful (that’s why we have customer surveys). For learning solutions, Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation is a good place to start.

An evaluation plan is usually created as a part of the Analyse phase.

I realize that many of my readers may not have an immediate need for a consulting methodology. But once you do, it’s here for a reference.

For those who have built new solutions, what would you add?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.