Project Management Consulting Skills - How consultants manage projects and file structures
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 พ.ค. 2024
- To succeed in business, you need to develop project management consulting skills. Learn how consultants manage projects and file structures in this video. In MBB consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) and Big 4 firms (PwC, KPMG, Deloitte, EY), consultants follow best practices to organize their project files in shared folders such as Box, Dropbox or OneDrive. It is crucial to keep your projects and files organized to succeed in consulting. Learn project management fundamentals in this video with essential consulting skills. In the project management consulting business, it is key to use project management tools. For many things, project management software is not even required. This video is a project management tutorial, covering the project management 101. Become a consulting project management professional with this video.
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That was a good video too!
Thank you James! Best, Heinrich
Never believed that such work-related content would be so constructively presented on TH-cam! Great work!
Happy to hear that it helps - thank you Devarshi! Best, Heinrich
totally, and this is so much useful to everyone who wants to be in consulting!!
Thank you for all your videos! More coffee breaks focusing on project management tips and tools would be great!
Hi Zain, yes will for sure do in the future! Best, Heinrich
Firm Learning Hello Heinrich, first of all I’m fan of your aunthentic speech and clear video’s. I do agree with Zane, without falling in the trap of productivity videos, you have a hugh potential to really deepdive with us in concrete, hand-on project mgt. give aways based on your experience more than based on theoretical models. So as Zain, I’m looking forward to see you engage in those. Keep on going & keep your authenticity on this path! Cheers ! Stephan
@@stephanlepouttre1522 Thanks for the feedback - yes have more videos of this type planned for the future :) Best! Heinrich
@@FirmLearning more videos on organising teams / Projekts and managing co-workers would be great!
Folder organization is something I've struggled for years until I finally achieve a structure that is pretty much similar to what you described. The "Old" folder is really useful and it was something I also learned from the consulting life. I didn't knew the practice of vPresented and vSent, I'll incorporate it to my routine as well.
Happy to hear it helped, thanks Mattheus! Best, Heinrich
As a fellow consultant, I can personally vouch that these techniques work elegantly even in highly complex projects. All the best, Heinrich, for your future videos!
Thanks Akash, great to hear that! Best, Heinrich
1:25 some type of shared drive service provider: box, dropbox, onedrive.
1:40 folding naming conventions: overarching or cryptic names.
at some point, your screen is shared with the all the clients name pops up. this would be a breach of confidentially.
2:40 folder structures: depends on the needs of independent projects.
3:05 numbers, at least 2 digits.
the first is admin folder: time sheets, some other overview, travel info and so on.
the second is meeting type: internal meeting and client meeting.
next, initial data request. most case before the project start, you'll submit to clients.
next, for each work stream or modules, you'll assign each associate to this.
4:50 for example, BU automotive, advanced industries.
5:00 next, big (module, workstream) overarching analysis. for example, employee survey, and benchmarking.
5:30 next, input from research team
5:50 large consulting firm will have back offices to do research.
6:20 one level deeper to the meeting folder,
6:50 start with the date when meeting actually took place.
7:35 jour fixs, steerco.
8:00 documents in meeting folders.
9:00 drag the older version into folder old.
documents labels. when you send to client, put vSent, vFinal, vPresented.. all these can help save the headache.
Love this thank you. It would be great to have a week to week guide on project management, ie: how to keep track of tasks and activities, weekly project update slides internal and external, how to avoid project going off the rails, how to balance between project management, project deliver, overseeing juniors and checking their work etc
One very useful tip, learnt from COBOL/FORTRAN programming, is to numerate the folders in hundreds (00100, 00200, 00300). In the event of needing to insert an additional folder in your scheme, you can use a middle or near number (00150, 00101,00105) depending on how related is the new folder to the older ones.
Thanks for this tip!
Hahaha. I name my files like this because a German teacher taught me to do this way. Everyone else believes I am crazy, but I love it. it's so practical and neat.
Fully agree ;) Thanks for sharing! Best, Heinrich
Love your videos. But this video isn't about project management, this video is about file management. Project management is a completely different and far more detailed field which encompasses RAID management, stakeholder management, project/programme planning, mobilisation, invoicing, resource management, PMO to mention but a few. Keep up the great work Heinrich, I just wanted to clarify this with you.
Hi Bill, thanks for your comment, appreciate it. Fully agree that project management is much more than what I talked about in this video. Though I do think that how you work together with your colleagues and structure and organize your files is a part of it. I might create additional videos in this series in the future, talking about some of the other topics you are mentioning as well. Best! Heinrich
I read somewhere in the comment about your accent being too German and Chinese at the same time. But I find it intriguing as this helps me to understand clients with different accents. Thank you.
I totally appreciate and like your channel, Heinrich! Very well designed content with a profound sense of applied knowlegde. Thank you for everything. Keep up the great work!
Regards, João
Thank you appreciate it!! Best, Heinrich
All of this is great stuff, but just hear me out for a second... SharePoint document libraries with metadata and version history can be used to accomplish all of this. You can create template document library with all the potential columns and views you may need and reuse the same template per client. What Heinrich is doing is a making great use of the file/folder names to cram a bunch of metadata (information about the files) into the one editable field available in File Explorer, but if you have SharePoint available, you don't have to put all this information into the file name.
(For anyone not familiar with SharePoint file management, metadata allows you to tag files with more information like work stream, Associate, sort order etc. Once these tags are built in, you can sort and filter by them and choose which ones you want in any given view. SharePoint also has automatic version history so if a new version is uploaded, you don't need to use an "old" folder. Instead, you can view any individual file's history of updates along with who changed what in each version)
Hi, thanks for sharing! Yes, worked with SharePoint in the past as well and it can indeed be quite helpful. Best! Heinrich
@@FirmLearning thanks for taking the time to make these videos and keep up the great content!
Well the system Heinrich presents is tool-agnostic. You can take your files to a different environment and it still works!
Just found you from TikTok and I am obsessed!! Thanks for the clear explanation
Hi! Great to hear that - thank you!! :) Best, Heinrich
THANK YOU! Working on this myself, and it's going to be simple to implement
Hi Michael, super happy to hear that thank you!! Best, Heinrich
This is a fantastic video; thank you for sharing it. I just found your channel today, and I'm excited to review your other content. I hope you're having a great weekend!
Hi Nathan, thanks for sharing, happy to hear that!! Best, Heinrich
We all know Heinrich was that consultant who did amazing on his projects and was somehow able to stay positive while maintaining work life balance.
Thanks for your kind comment Lana! Must say there were definitely also phases where I felt stressed and overwhelmed.. but definitely important to have work life balance and especially psychological health as a priority! Thanks Lana! Best, Heinrich
My favorite videos are ones about communication and structuring the slides. Especially with examples of dos and donts the more the better. Thank you for the amazing content ☺️
Hi Darine, thank you for your feedback. Makes sense - will continue to create content covering these topics :) Best! Heinrich
Appreciate the great content you share on this channel. I think this content is import for everyone not just for beginners. 🙂
Always good to see some great tips from FirmLearning !
Thank you for all your videos, this one was particularly well timed for me. More coffee breaks focusing on project management would be much appreciated.
Thanks for your feedback Jess - will do!! Best, Heinrich
Thank you so much for this, I needed this so much
Excellent tips. Another tip that I’d add would be to open all the documents, websites etc. ahead of the meeting.
You do not want to make searches in front of a client!
It’s unprofessional and risky, especially on a Mac that has an outstanding indexing (ten times better than windows).
Looking forward to your next vid.
Thanks!
Hi Gustav, yes agree, thanks for sharing! Having the key files at hand before the meeting is indeed a good recommendation! Best, Heinrich
Amazing contents as always Heinrich! Have been watching your youtube videos since you launched TH-cam channel, keep inspiring!
Hi Felix, thanks for being here since the start :) Appreciate it! Best, Heinrich
Great video. I love practical topics like this. It may be basic stuff, but it’s nice to benchmark myself against best practices from the pro’s.
Happy to hear that - thanks for watching James! Best, Heinrich
This channel is so helpful! I landed a spot on my college's consulting team yesterday so I've been binging this entire channel lol
Super happy to hear that, thanks!! Best, Heinrich
Great video as always Heinrich!
Happy to hear that, thanks for your comment!
Thank you, so informative
!
Happy to hear that, thanks! Best, Heinrich
Also thank God that Sharepoint finally reached the point where you can simultaneously read AND edit office documents, and thus can prevent at least a big portion of those .v1/2/3/... files. :-)
Yes agree, Sharepoint can really help with this!! Best, Heinrich
I use onenote for a lot of the meeting / expert interview record keeping. Works really well and much less admin/time intensive.
Yes OneNote is great, frequently use it as well! :) Thanks for watching Ismaile. Best, Heinrich
@@FirmLearning thank you for making the videos! Always an interesting and valuable watch :)
Such a useful video, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching, great to hear you find it helpful! Best, Heinrich
This is super useful, thank you!
Great to hear that, thanks Zeljko! Best, Heinrich
Hey TH-cam.
Why did you recommend this?
Great video👍👍👍
I subscribed your channel
From Japan
;) Thanks for watching!! Best, Heinrich
Hi Heinrich, another great video like it has always been!
I am at the first year of my career as a management trainee and find "good notes taking ability" is one key factor to a successful career. It would be great if you can plan it into your future video ;-)
More specifically, would like to learn how a top-tier consultant
1. consumes a large amount of inputs quickly
2. organizes information
3. structures note taking template
4. present back information
Hope it would be a good topic for you to share!
Hi Wang thank you for your suggestions! Might pick that up in a future video! Best, Heinrich
Awesome video! I'm studying PM at uni and I wish they taught this in class, would have better prepared me for work.
Happy to hear that, thanks Zhi! Best, Heinrich
For any field in a degree level study, practicalities are rarely talked about. Most professions need a 3-6 month 'practical' unit as a transition to work.
Love your channel! I always either learn something valuable or get a confidence boost knowing that I have already been doing some of the best practices you have shared. Could you do videos on how to set up a PMO for multi-year, cross-functional, strategic initiatives? Thanks in advance 👏👏
Very happy to hear that, thanks for watching! :) Yes, PMO for sure is an important topic. Might pick that up in future videos! Best, Heinrich
Thank you. hope more Project management tips
Thanks for watching. More to come in the future :) Best! Heinrich
Hi Heinrich, thank you for your video. I just re-organized my folders thanks to you haha
Super happy to hear the video was helpful :) All the best to you! - H
really helpful mess,.. this versioning got better in recent years when you put office documents on an internal SharePoint where you work at documents at the same time (Excel still in draft as far as I know), but the rest is very very helpful. Thanks
Thanks for sharing! Glad that you found it helpful :)
@2:15 How about naming the overarching folder after the project itself, e.g. "Go-to-market Strategy Asia" (w/o revealing any companies' names)? You could even intentionally let the overview of all these folders pop up while sharing your screen occasionally to make the customer thirsty for more projects ("Oh wow, they created a digital transformation strategy for another company. We might need that, too!"). You'd turn your folders into crossselling machines. ;-) To avoid ambiguity you could still add a cryptic key, e.g. "ProjectID" -> "01_Implementation_AnalyticalCRM".
If the names are super general I agree that you can do something like this. Be careful though that the project name is not already giving the client away :) Best! Heinrich
Great one - all noted!
Thank you Tania! Best, Heinrich
Wow Heinrich. I’m only a few minutes into the video but I’m really excited to hear about this content
Hope the rest of the video was helpful as well :) Thanks for watching Desiree!! Best, Heinrich
Helpful as always!
Thank YOU for watching! :) Best, Heinrich
Just to add one nugget: When you have a folder that is broken down by project, one cool trick is to prepend active projects with an exclamation mark, e.g., !FIL234. This way active projects will always be at the top of the folder and easy to find, because special characters are sorted before numbers :)
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the insights! I am planning to do an summer school abroad and my university is partnered with ESCP Paris and Bocconi Milan. Which would you prefer to look good on the cv?
Thanks!
Hi, would see Bocconi > ESCP. But I might be biased as I studied at Bocconi for a semester as well ;) Best, Heinrich
Very useful tips!
Thank you!! Heinrich
Very helpful videos, thank you for making them. Could you possibly make a video on the reality (and advice) getting into management consulting as an experienced professional (e.g. working in startups and similar for 5+ years)? Most of the content online seems to be about how to get in as a recent graduate...
Hi Judita, thank you for the suggestion! Might pick that up in a future video. Best, Heinrich
so glad the youtube algorithm brought me here, great content and explained very clear
Hi Nina, super glad to hear the video is helpful :) Best, Heinrich
Thanks!
Thank you very much Jason, appreciate your support! All the best to you - Heinrich
I Will apply this tips at my job!
Good to hear! Thanks for watching! :)
Great video, really useful
Thank you Ankit, appreciate it! Best, Heinrich
Thank you for your videos, they’re very helpful. Do you want to start your own business in the future? Why did you choose consulting to develop yourself in?
Happy to hear that thank you! Yes, indeed entrepreneurship is something I would like to do. Lets see what the future brings :) Best, Heinrich
Great stuff H! Would be very beneficial, if you show more videos on ways of consulting presentations to clients, real life examples (could be from SteerCo). Another topic could be what training's have you experienced in consulting and share some with us.
Thanks for the suggestion Fagan. Yes, will continue talking about these topics here on this channel. Best! Heinrich
Amazing content Heinrich. Keep it up 👍.
Thanks!! Happy to hear that. Best, Heinrich
Great description of file structures and file management. Would you archive all files and folders relating to a project once the project had been delivered and all snagging completed? We keep a 999_Lessons_Learned file of all lessons learned from all projects that has details of projects going back to 1989 at the moment.
Hi Derran, thanks for the comment! Yes this can for sure be a good option, can see the value in it. Thanks for sharing! Best, Heinrich
Great video you have here. Appreciate if you could share some key elements and structure of a good meeting agenda and meeting minutes in consulting world.
Hi Danny, thanks for the suggestion. Might pick that up in future videos! Best, Heinrich
Excellent
Thanks!
I'm currently trying to restructure my organization's Google Drive content. We're planning to do it team by team! I think it would help to learn more about how you organize files inside the "old folder"?
Usually you just drop all the old stuff into it and start from scratch :) Of course, selected important files you can integrate into the new structure
44K in 8 months. Quality will always rise to the top
Thank you!! Happy to hear you find it valuable. Best, Heinrich
Danke!
Thanks for your support (and apologies for late reply)! Appreciate the comment! Best, Heinrich
Hi Heinrich, I've been working as Projectmanager for a large German IT company for a bit over a year now and want to switch career into consulting. Do you have an idea, what skills I should highlight in my application that are transferable to a position as consultant and that make me an attractive applicant? Thanks and keep up the great work
Hi! Make sure that you are not perceived as a super techy person but more of a general manager type of profile. Highlight what you ACHIEVED in your role, the actual IMPACT that you had. Lots of success!! Best, Heinrich
Hello, thank you for the very valuable content!
I was wondering what does "JF Core team" stands for?
Jour Fixe ;)
Jour Fixe ;)
İnteresting video.In Mckinsey if you are not IT/tech person how do you work in AI,IoT,automation and digitilization projects?As I know there is some training program in Austria.How is it?Do training programs really work?Thanks
If specific domain knowledge is required, of course the team will make sure to at least staff parts of the team with knowledge in exactly that field! Best, Heinrich
@@FirmLearning Thanks a lot.That is awasome that you always reply and help
Hey, what about à video on how to actually launch a project as a project lead ? « First day answer » meeting, checklist of things to do on first week (plan internal and client weekly meetings...)? Thanks !!
Hi Tom, thanks for your comment. Love the idea!! Yes, might set something up like this for a future video. Best! Heinrich
How do you get colleagues to meet YOUR deadlines? (ie: you need their input and they are likely going to push back due to their own workflow...). thanks!
Hi, thanks for your comment! Indeed an important topic, answer will depend on the individual circumstances. Might pick this up for a future video! Best, Heinrich
This is more about project document management, but still useful. However, why not use SharePoint, or other document management system, such as Procore (designed for construction, but applicable to any domain)? This would enable better tracking, key-wording, which would allow more accurate searching, and, for SharePoint, automatic versioning, annotation with comments, and lots of other data about the document, including, for example, document status, author, manager, client details, client reaction notes, etc.
is there a note taking method that McK(or you) uses? I can hardly find any video about this. The only thing I could find is a book written by a japanese, which claimed his method was indeed from McK
Hi Shing, yes there is :) Will probably release a video for this topic this week. Stay tuned for Saturday (my video release day!) - Best, Heinrich
@@FirmLearning thx！
This only applies to companies using dated technology infrastructures. Companies using anything more modern would not advise such a deep nested folder structure with such high character counts. Also files saved on any modern web platform would have built-in version history of files.
Yes agree! Though trust me, most companies still work like this ;) Best, Heinrich
Do you have a course or any recommended further reading?
Hi! Check out my video description for my course on Slide Writing! Also some book recommendations below. Stay tuned, will probably release more courses soon :) Best, Heinrich
Hello sir, this is Nithish Paul from Bangalore, first of all, I have to say, you are making amazing videos. I really appreciate your hard work and sharing such good knowledge and experience with the world, am seeking advice from you. am an upcoming engineering graduate, seeking a position In MBB or big 4 firms, I find it hard to get in there, could you help me out!.
awaiting your reply.
Hi Nithish, thanks for your comment, great to hear the videos are helpful. Any specific way I can help? Feel free to write me a DM on Instagram! (@firmlearning) - Best, Heinrich
Do consultants use S-curve in their project management?
Hi! No, not something that was regularly used (at least not that I would be aware). Best, H
Hi. I'm an aspiring consultant.I'm preparing for CAPM. Will the knowledge gained in the certification help in the consulting career?
Hi Puja, thanks for your comment. Not much experience with that certification, therefore cannot really give advice on that. Lots of success to you! Heinrich
Wish learned it earlier....
Happy to hear it is helpful. All the best to you Rajdeep! Best, Heinrich
Need videos on project delivery
What is your experience with Agile methods when performing consultancy? Do you have experienced situations where you worked this way or is it always the Waterfall type of approach?
Hi, what I have seen it is still mostly waterfall, though in specific areas we did also use agile (e.g., for coming up with and testing online marketing ideas). Best, H
Why dont you use YYYY-MM-DD in filenames. With 10 digits without a separator its really hard to see the month quickly
Hi Ben, yes can see the value of that. Just used to do it this way ;) Best, H
Not what I was expecting from the video title. It's more of a "organizing project files" than that of project management. But, yeah the share folders look pretty similar at my firm.
Hi, yes agree that there are many other super relevant aspects of project management. Will create more videos on this topic, stay tuned! Best, Heinrich
Hey guy, I love your video, and it's helpful. The only problem is that the strong accent makes me really hard to listen.
Hi, thanks great to hear the video is helpful. Thanks for the feedback - though the accent is of course not something I can easily change ;) Best, Heinrich
Trying to destroy the like button but I can only click it once...
Thank you so much Gabriel! Glad you enjoyed the video!
Should be using Wrike, Asana, Smartsheet, or Monday.
What he is showing is amateur hour in terms of project management.
I'll be back ...
Happy to hear that thank you! Best, Heinrich
I've destroyed the like button, now I can't like anymore..... ;)
Did you use anything similar to next cloud, own cloud, confluence?
How about editing files by multiple people, do you use just Google docs?
This is much appreciated! :)
In consulting we did not use any of this, just a shared drive system (Dropbox equivalent).
Best! Heinrich
Dont u hate your Selling time for money life?
No, I do not hate my life ;) Best, H
Hi Hendrick. Can you share your email?
If you have any questions feel free to ask them on here or you can directly message me on Instagram :)
@@FirmLearning thx for your reply. Will do it soon.