The Business Consulting and Support Standards Mapping Project

1. The Business Consulting and Support Standards Mapping Project Dr Kion Ahadi Head of MSC

2. Introducing the MSC • Government recognised standards setting body for Management and Leadership. • Guardians and promoters of the management and leadership National Occupational Standards. • Manage and certificate the Management Apprenticeship programmes. • Provide secretariat to the Management and Leadership Qualifications Forum. • To publicise and promote the Management and Leadership Qualifications and Learning Strategy.

3. About IBC • The Professional Body for Business Consultants (management consultants & business advisers). • An organisation within the Chartered Management Institute. • A member of the International Council of Management Consultancy Institutes (ICMCI). • About 7000 individual members and 160 corporate (practice) members.

4. Consultant or Advisor • Some degree of overlap. • IBA advisers tended to focus on start up and small companies. • Consultants more likely to be involved with larger organisations. • Distinctions less clear over time. • Advisers tend not to implement solutions. • Consultants may both diagnose and implement solutions.

5. Project Stages • Phase 1: Map the 8 SFEDI Business Support standards against: - The Management Leadership NOS; - The Institute of Business Consulting Management; - Consultancy Competency Framework; - Investors in People Competency definitions. • Phase 2: Consult on the gaps that emerged from the mapping. • Phase 3: Incorporate the consultation responses into a final set of recommendations, which define the next phase of work.

6. The Key Objectives • Short term: To identify the linkages and confirm the gaps between the present set of standards. • Mid Term: Development of new standards for use by consultants and advisors. • Long Term: New standards published that will enable consultants and business advisors to meet the needs of business, increasing UK economic productivity.

7. Methodology • Step 1. Use SFEDI as the control and map by affiliating the titles within each Framework. • Step 2. Look for affiliations between the core standard title, the description underpinning each standard and the descriptions which underpinned each title in each of the other frameworks. • Step 3. Accept/Reject data for mapping and identify gaps in the standards. • Accept/ Reject. Tempered decision using judgment, interpretation and experience. Our decisions were based on the words written into each standard; no attempt was made to make assumptions about any information that was not stated in each framework.

8. Constraints of Mapping • The standards or frameworks omit any consensus over what they should contain. • The fundamental strengths, compatibility and practical usefulness of the standards were obscured by variations on common themes. • Some of the standards are competency frameworks, whilst others are competences that build on skills and knowledge. • Assigning reliable measures to the competency frameworks to show the differences between high and average performance is difficult. • The standards obscure their true benefit for business.

9. Interim Recommendations • The development of a single framework of standards for the future that is common to all business consulting and advisor specialisations. • They should be easily transferable between and within different sectors. • These future standards should build on the gaps identified from this mapping once refined after consultation.

10. Further Information MSC: www.management-standards.org IBC: www.ibconsulting.org.uk MAON: www.maon.co.uk

11. Next Steps • Consultation phase ongoing till the end of February 2008. • Collation and incorporation of feedback by the end of March 2008. • Production of a final report and dissemination of findings by the end of April 2008. • Start next phase in May 2008.