Consulting Engagement Management
Consulting Engagement Management
This domain tests how a technical consultant turns a client need into a governed, contracted engagement and closes it cleanly. Expect questions on scope, commercial terms, governance, risk, change control, and engagement closure.
Core rules
- Define scope in a statement of work (SOW): deliverables, acceptance criteria, assumptions, dependencies, exclusions, milestones, and payment triggers.
- Baseline scope, schedule, and effort; route any change through a written change request with impact analysis before work starts.
- Run a governance cadence: weekly delivery stand-up, monthly steering committee, RAID log, RACI matrix, and an escalation path agreed in the contract.
- Track effort and profitability at the level the contract requires; do not trade unbilled work for goodwill without an approved decision.
- Close with formal acceptance, lessons learned, asset transfer, and final invoicing.
Worked example
A client asks mid-project for an extra dashboard. The consultant checks the SOW: dashboards are listed as an exclusion. She documents the request, estimates effort and schedule impact, confirms the trade-off with the sponsor, and submits a change order. Work does not begin until approval. Reasoning: the request is legitimate, but scope is contractual; unapproved work erodes margin and sets a precedent.
Traps
- Treating a verbal yes as scope approval.
- Gold-plating deliverables the client did not ask for.
- Confusing effort with elapsed duration in estimates.
- Omitting acceptance criteria, so sign-off stalls.