Educational Consultants: proving your value

This is a fair question, and it will always come up for consulting gigs: how do you prove the value of your work for an organization who hires you?

I am sure many educational professional can relate to the groups of consultants who have come into your organizations, turned your life upside down for a short period of time, made you feel uncomfortable, and then left without you understanding what they did or what they were paid to do.

Personally, as a consultant this would horrify me if that the perception of what I had done, because you are supposed to be there to make employees lives better (I hope).

“Professors Doubt Value of Consultant at Louisville”

“Faculty members are raising questions about the value of a consultant -- hired for $1.1 million, primarily with no-bid contracts -- at the University of Louisville, The Courier-Journal reported. University administrators say that they are finding ways to save money, and that only some preliminary recommendations have been released. But professors say that the analyses that have been released seem obvious and not worth the money. Some of their examples come in reports stating that  the university's “greatest strength is the quality of our people” and that the university “must be globally engaged to be a leading institution of the 21st century.””

Read it here: http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/01/20/professors-doubt-value-consultant-louisville

This article really had me thinking about how should constantly improve my processes of adding value to an organization that pays you.

So, what do you all think are the best practices to show the value of your work?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam