Consulting: Processes and Skills 7,5 Credits
Course Contents
The course will be practically oriented and let students engage with real-world companies and problems in a professional way. The course is designed to involve real consulting agencies in the course and work with “real” consulting cases where students are trained to “manage” digital business projects.The course will help students develop skills associated with planning and delivering a digital business consulting project. This includes use of office software - particularly PPT, Excel and Outlook - and how to design deliverables of a consultancy assignment – e.g. via report design, information selection, and presentation strategies and skills. The course also focuses on effective communication e.g. in a case or client scenario, via presentation and use of pre-produced templates for quick production of presentation slides, preparation of backup slides, and use of resources to enhance communication effectiveness (e.g., social media, examples/best practices). The course will be interactive and contain a number of practical workshops that allows students to train their skills.
It will also focus on managing and planning consultancy work – idea generation and brainstorming techniques, as well as tools for information gathering and structuring, such as the McKinsey Pyramid. The course also aims to train the students in “selling knowledge as a service” - dealing with uncertain projects and uncertain 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. 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.
Prerequisites
Bachelor’s degree (i.e the equivalent of 180 ECTS credits at an accredited university) with at least 30 credits in Business Administration and 30 credits in one (or a combination) of the following areas: Business Administration, Economics, Industrial Engineering and Management, Business Analytics, Informatics, Information Technology, Communication, Commerce (or the equivalent). Proof of English proficiency is required.Level of Education: Master
Course code/Ladok code: JCPR23
The course is conducted at: Jönköping International Business School
