Description:

The market for consultion services grows annually by 20% and is therefore one of the leading growth sectors an professional fields in the future. This trend is in particular driven by the IT industry. Here, widely used standard software moves the focus of the future professional field from software development to consulting. In this context, consulting services have usually a broad definition, reaching from pure IT-focused consulting (e.g., deployment of SAP) to strategic consulting (stategy, organisation etc). In contrast to common rumors, a qualifcation in business studies is not a must. This opens up a diversified an exciting field with exceptional develoment perspectives for computer science students.

Content:

The course deals thematically  with the two fields consulting in general and function-specific consulting (with IT consulting as an example).

The structure of the course is oriented along the phases of a consulting project:

• Diagnosis: The consultant as an analytic problem solver.
• Strategic adjustment/redesign of the core processes: Optimisation/redesign of essential business functionality to solve the diagnosed problems in cooperation with the client.
• Implementation: Installation of the solutions in the client`s organisation for assuring the implementation.

Emphasised topics in the course are:

• Elementary problem solving: Problem definition, stucturing of problems and focussing through the usage of tools (e.g., logic and hypothesis trees), creative techniques, solution systems etc.
• Obtaining information effectively: Access of information sources, interview techniques etc.
• Effective communication of findings/recommendations. Analysis/planning of communication (media, audience, formats), communication styles (e.g., top-down vs. bottom-up), special topics (e.g., arrangement of complex information) etc.

Objective:

At the end of the course, the participants

• have gained knowledge and understanding for the activities of the consulting process in general,
• have gained function-specific knowledge and understanding of IT consulting,
• have an overview about consulting companies,
• know concrete consulting examples,
• have experienced how effective teams work and
• have got an insight into the professional field "consulting".