In my role as consultant

Consultant:  a person who when asked the time, borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.

I've been asked to "consult" on a technology plan for a school. Consultancies are jobs I always undertake with no small degree of trepidation. Unlike a workshop or speech, these jobs can be wildly unpredictable, especially in the value of their outcomes (at least as I perceive it). Sometimes I've felt very good about what I've been able to do for the organization that hires me; other times less so. And it's not for the lack of effort on my part.

 Given my mixed experience both as a consultant and the recipient of such services, I always offer the following caveat when approached for a job:

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From: "What Gets Measured, Gets Done," http://www.doug-johnson.com/wgm/wgm.pdf

The outside consultant
Should a district hire a consultant from outside the district to help evaluate its library media program? Since I
have at times served as a consultant myself, you need to know that my advice may be somewhat self-serving.
But here it is anyway…

There are a number of very good reasons not to hire a consultant to help in the evaluation process:

• Good consultants are expensive. (An alternative to a hired gun is to have a reciprocal agreement with another district to trade external evaluators. The North Central Association uses volunteer evaluators from member schools. These folks know they in turn will get volunteers when they are evaluated.)
• Consultants may not understand the culture, philosophy, and goals of the district.
• Consultants may come to the evaluation with a set of prejudices not in keeping with district philosophy.
• Consultants may not come from recent practice in the field.
• Consultants can only discover a limited amount of information during a site visit. One or two conversations or experiences may play too important a factor in the consultant’s final recommendations.

Other than that, we are charming and lovable people and can add value to the evaluation process:

• Consultants can bring a sense of objectivity to the evaluation.
• Consultants can bring expertise in building good programs to the district.
• Consultants can lend credibility and validity to the work done by the district evaluation team if the administrative team and school board regard them as impartial and expert.
• Consultants can bring knowledge of current best practice and future trends in the field, and may have knowledge of what other schools are doing that is innovative and effective.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck from a consultant:

• Spell out exactly what result you expect from his/her involvement. (Site visit, written report, follow-up, etc.)
• Have good information for the consultant to use. Inventories, survey results etc, should be done prior to his/her involvement. (Although a good consultant should be able to provide sources for good evaluative tools.) The consultant should only be analyzing the data and making recommendations, not gathering it.
• Get recommendations from others who have used the consultant. Ask about his or her communication skills, timeliness, reliability, and the usability of the consultant’s product.
• Hire someone with credibility and recent experience in the field.

When I visit a district as a program evaluator, my main objective is to help the head of the library media/technology department get across whatever message he or she needs to have the administration and board hear. Most people for whom I have worked have a very realistic picture of the strengths and weaknesses of their own programs.

I also attempt to answer genuine questions these folks might have: Why are more classes not using technology for research purposes? To what extent do our physical facilities help or hinder our library media programs? How can we better use the computers we have in our elementary schools? Do our print collections meet the needs of our students and staff? How can we better allocate our media and technology dollars?

The main point here is that the better the district knows what it wants from an outside consultant evaluator, the better off that person is able to provide it. And this leaves everyone satisfied and the district with useful information that can be used to improve.

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What makes a consultant valuable in your experience?