Glossary
Projenomics® – Laws of business, projects, financials, industry knowledge and culture.
Project Accelerator – TAC 4 led interactions that promote team interaction and conflict resolution that help you overcome any barriers to a successful project and creation of a project roadmap that leads to efficient project advancement.
IT & Data Architecture – Creating actionable and sustainable systems that help your team make business decisions using data you can trust.
Vendor Management – Freeing up more time for the client by assisting them in keeping third-party vendors on track and in-budget.
Vendor Selection – Aiding a client in making an informed decision when choosing a third-party vendor that can easily handle the work and comfortably fit with the client’s team.
Personal Echo – Possessing and living life according to the answers to foundational personal questions such as:
- Why do we exist?
- What do we do?
- What do we value?
- How do we succeed?
- What is most important right now?
- Who must do what?
Assessment – Systematic collection of data, followed by analysis to generate findings and conclusions. More recently, assessments are often associated with recommendations. Thus, the terms evaluation and assessment are often used interchangeably.
Authenticity – Capacity of a person to express themselves in an honest and direct manner based in the here-and-now.
Best practices (management) – Management practices that are widely recognized as standard and effective for achieving desired results in organizations. Examples include well-known practices, such as Board training, strategic planning and employee performance evaluations. There are strong opinions both about what qualifies as a best practice and about their usage.
Business development – Activities to expand the impact and/or revenues of an organization. Includes researching the environment to identify all opportunities to provide services, conducting a feasibility study of each likely opportunity, and developing a Business Plan for each of the most likely opportunities.
Business planning – Activities to clarify the need for a product or service in a general market, specific groups of people (target markets) having that need, how the product or service meets each group’s particular needs, resources needed to develop and provide the product or service, how the resources will be organized and managed, costs to obtain and support use of the resources, and how communications between the organization and markets will be coordinated. Information is often organized into subsections of a business plan, such as description of the product or service, marketing plan, management plan and financial plan.
Chief Executive Officer – Singular organizational position responsible to implement the policies and plans of the Board of Directors, and to lead and manage all other employees. In nonprofits, commonly referred to as the Executive Director.
Client – Person or group who approves, works with, and/or is affected by, the consultant’s activities in an organization. Are several types: 1) official client hires, pays, makes major decisions, ultimately decides if the project was successful, and is usually the same throughout the project; 2) direct clients directly work with the consultant at various times, can be different people, and are always the consultant’s current priority for effective collaboration; and 3) indirect clients are indirectly and ultimately affected by the consultant’s activities in the organization.
Coaching (personal and professional) – Using a variety of tools (assessments, deep listening, inquiry, paraphrasing, reframing, action planning, etc.) to guide and support another individual or group to carefully examine their current priorities, take actions to address those priorities, and learn from reflections on those actions. There are different overall types of coaching, for example, “being” and performance coaching, and also numerous applications of coaching, such as life, business and executive.
Collaborative consulting cycle – Highly integrated set of collaborative consulting activities intended to address the presenting priority in an organization. Includes seven phases: Client Start-Up; Engagement and Agreement; Discovery and Feedback; Action Planning, Alignment and Integration; Implementation and Change Management; Adoption and Evaluation; and Project Termination.
Collaborative consulting – Philosophy of consulting in which the consultant and client work in partnership to address the presenting priority in the client’s organization. Philosophy asserts that, the more collaborative the consulting activities, then the more trust, commitment and collaboration gained from the client and, thus, the more long lasting and successful the results of the consulting activities in the client’s organization.
Consultant – A consultant is someone trying to change another person or organization, but who has no direct control over that person. So you are a consultant if, for example, you are a coach, trainer, facilitator, advisor or mentor – or a group member who is assigned to help your group to Change.
Consulting – Activities carried out by a consultant to help a client address their presenting priority in their organization. Activities can be in various forms, for example, provision of resources, training, coaching or facilitation. Often conducted in various phases that generally conform to phases of the action research process. (See Systematic consulting process.)
Consulting skills – Abilities of the consultant to effectively help a client to solve a problem or achieve a goal. The nature of the skills depends on the nature of the consulting, for example, they can be explicit and systematic, implicit and organic, direct or indirect, and even collaborative in nature. Explicit and systematic consulting skills tend to be the best approach when working to guide significant change in organizations. (See Consulting methods.)
Content (facilitation) – Information, materials and other resources that group members are working on in their group. In contrast to process, which includes information, materials and other resources that are directly in regard to how a group of people function together.
Environment – All systems, materials and information that exist outside of the boundaries of a system. To be effective, systems exchange and address ongoing feedback with their environment.
Ethics – Simply put, ethics involves learning what is right or wrong, and then doing the right thing. Ethics includes the fundamental ground rules by which we live our lives. A code of ethics is an articulated set of values or principles by which a person or group should Act.
Evaluation – Systematic collection and analysis of data to make a decision. Includes generation of findings and recommendations to address findings.
Evaluation (formative) – Evaluation of the quality of activities while those activities are being conducted. Primarily intended to improve the quality of those activities while underway.
Evaluation (summative) – Evaluation of the quality of final results after activities have been finished. Primarily intended to determine if the desired results have been achieved or not.
External consultant – Someone considered not to be an official, ongoing member of the organization. The onetime relationship of the consultant to the organization is determined usually by a project’s contract or Letter of Agreement. Payment is on the basis of a particular project that specifies certain desired results and deliverables from the consultant. Payroll taxes are not withheld from the person’s paycheck – the person pays their own payroll taxes.
Feedback – Information provided to, received by, or exchanged between systems and useful to enhancing the performance of one or more systems.
Financial management – Activities to ensure the organization’s finances are effectively accounted for, legally allocated, at minimum risk and utilized in an optimum manner. Includes operating according to fiscal policies and procedures, bookkeeping to monitor and record transactions, generating and analyzing financial statements, and actions to improve financial management.
Function (management) – Highly integrated set of ongoing management activities. For example, Board operations, strategic planning, business planning, product development, marketing, staffing, facilities management and financial management.
Leader – Person who conducts leadership activities or has that capacity in an organization. Anyone in the organization can be a leader. Commonly refers to official roles of top level influence, such as Board Chair, Chief Executive Officer or Chief Operating Officer. Leader can act as an internal change agent if working to guide change internally.
Leadership – Activities or capacity to establish direction and influence a domain to follow that direction. Type of skills required depends on the domain of leadership, for example, leading oneself, other individuals, other groups, an organization, a community or a society. Can also refer to leadership traits or leadership roles.
Learning – Enhanced or enhancing knowledge, behaviors, skills, attitudes, conditions or values.
Management – Traditionally, refers to the activities involved in the four general practices: planning, organizing, leading and coordinating. The four functions recur throughout the organization and are highly integrated.
Marketing – Activities to establish and maintain a beneficial and ongoing relationship between an organization and certain groups of external stakeholders. “Inbound” marketing includes researching the external environment to: 1) identify the specific types of needs of each specific group of customers, 2) how to meet each of those needs, 3) what value (prices, fees, etc.) needs to be obtained in return for meeting those needs, 4) what collaborators exist and 5) what competitors exist. “Outbound” marketing includes: 6) advertising, 7) promotions and 8) public relations to enlighten stakeholders about products, services and the organization.
Members (of the organization) – This Field Guide considers members of an organization to include members of the Board of Directors and the employees.
Process (cross-functional) – Organizational activities that span more than one major subsystem in an organization. For example, processes of information technology and quality management.
Process (facilitation) – Information, materials and other resources directly in regard to how a group of people function together. In contrast to content, which is information, materials and others resources in regard to what members are working on in their group.
Processes (system) – Activities to manipulate the system’s inputs to achieve the overall desired results (outputs and outcomes) of the system.
Project plan – Documented description of the results to be achieved by a project, along with methods to achieve those results, resources needed to use the methods, roles and responsibilities of the consultant and client during the project, budget for the project, and schedule for the project.
Results – Overall accomplishments desired from the performance of the domain. Are measures of products, services or changes (outcomes) for an internal or external customer. Often expressed in terms of cost, quality, quantity, time or learning.
Services – A commodity, usually intangible, that is offered for sale. A product is a commodity, often tangible, that is offered for sale.
Specialist (consultant) – A specialist provides highly specialized help, for example, regarding a certain system or management function in an organization, such as installing or fixing a computer system or improving financial management practices.
Standard – Specifies how well a desired result should be, or was, achieved by a system. For example, “meets expectations” or “exceeds expectations.”
Structures – Plans, policies, positions, procedures, etc., that configure and guide the overall relationships, integration and performance of systems in an organization.
System – A collection of resources and activities aligned and integrated to accomplish an overall goal. Includes inputs, processes and outputs to achieve the goal. An automobile engine is a system. A pile of sand is not a system.
Systematic – In the nature of a system; a methodological approach to have goal(s), monitor feedback regarding achievement of goal(s), and make necessary adjustments to more effectively achieve the goal(s).
Team building – Activities to form and develop a small group of people to effectively work toward a common purpose and achieve specific goals. At a minimum, includes clarifying the group’s purpose and goals, leadership roles, means of communication, and how members will make decisions and solve problems.
Teamwork – Activities among team members to effectively achieve the results desired from the team.
Training – Traditionally, activities to convey specific information to help an individual or group to more effectively do a current or future task or job.