Consulting: Processes and Skills 7.5 credits

The course will be practically oriented and let students engage with real-world problems professionally. The course is designed so that students get the opportunity to work with “real” consulting cases and are trained to “manage” digital business consulting projects. The course will help students develop skills associated with planning and delivering a digital business consulting project. This includes using digital applications linked to consulting to design consultancy assignment deliverables, e.g., report design, information selection, and presentation strategies and skills. The course also focuses on effective communication strategies to interact with clients, from problem formulation/understanding to the delivery of recommendations. The course will also contain practical skills workshops, allowing students to develop consulting skills. It will also focus on managing and planning consultancy work – idea generation and brainstorming techniques, as well as information gathering and structuring tools, such as the McKinsey Pyramid. The course also aims to train the students in “selling knowledge as a service” - dealing with uncertain projects and clients in uncertain environments – task definition, task delimitation, client handling, and persuasive project sales and project ending. **Connection to Research and Practice** The course has a strong practical connection. Industry partners will deliver course segments and give guest lectures. The skillsets and tools covered in the course are continuously determined and delivered in collaboration with the consulting industry (guest lectures). The tools taught are of practical relevance, and the teaching mode of the course is also highly practical and applied, where students continuously learn by doing. The course is multidisciplinary, and course contents are anchored in contemporary research on business communication, project management, and organizational communication.