# Starting a New Engagement as a Lead Consultant

DevFeed: [Starting a New Engagement as a Lead Consultant](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/starting-a-new-engagement-as-a-lead-consultant-31921.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<http://blog.jayfields.com/2017/05/starting-new-engagement-as-lead.html>)

Author: Jay (noreply@blogger.com)

Published: 2017-05-17T11:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Jay Fields](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/jay-fields.md>)

Topics: [client](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/client.md>), [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>)

Tags: [advice](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/advice.md>), [blog-post](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/blog-post.md>), [consulting](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/consulting.md>), [delivery](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/delivery.md>), [enablement](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/enablement.md>), [lead](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/lead.md>), [leadership](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/leadership.md>), [project](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/project.md>), [work](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/work.md>)

## AI overview

A lead consultant reflects on starting new consulting engagements, arguing that there is no universal process. The article focuses on balancing client enablement with software delivery, identifying the client's actual needs, and improving people and processes without neglecting delivery.

## Source excerpt

Someone recently asked me for information on starting new consulting engagements. A few years back I published Sean Doran and Scott Conley's thoughts on Being a Lead Consultant. Sean and Scott's list is great for any lead consultant, and the advice applies well for the lifetime of a project. I considered sending that list to the person looking for new engagement advice, but I'm not sure that list would be the best place to focus my attention at the beginning of a project. The beginning of a project is a special and dangerous time. You get a mix of (at least) optimism, concern, and freedom. There are a large number of ways the project can go, and as a lead consultant you'll play a major role determining it's outcome. The specific question I recently received was: did you have a process you followed when new engagements began. The remainder of this blog post contains my (slightly edited) response. I found being a lead at ThoughtWorks to be a nearly impossible balancing act. It's possible we didn't have a process because we weren't organized enough, but it's more likely that there's no general formula that works. What we ran into constantly was what we called the "enablement versus delivery" issue: If you're teaching client devs (enablement), you really don't have time to meet delivery deadlines; conversely if you're delivering software you rarely have time to teach. How to balance enablement versus delivery is something that varies based on the client's skillset and the ROI of the software being developed. What makes it worse is that the client often thinks they need one thing, but if the the company didn't have issues you (likely) wouldn't be there. Sometimes the issues are with the stakeholder and they'll tell you to focus on the wrong thing, and sometimes the stakeholder knows the deal but the other people you are forced to work with are the problem. Often it's a race to figure out what the client needs and get them to agree to fix it, before you've lost too much g