Understanding the Stakeholders’ Expectations

One of my most challenging experiences occurred during my first year at Consulting Group. Our team had been engaged to assist a utility client with assessing specific business processes integrated between the wholesale and retail business units prior to a private equity buy-out. Due to scheduling conflicts, a senior manager was assigned to manage the entire project on a part-time basis. Because of the lack of a focused project management office, communication between the client and project team declined quickly. Additionally, with limited overall project guidance, my other colleague and I started working autonomously. As a relatively new associate in the firm, I hesitated raising questions about this disjointed approach and focused on producing quality deliverables. Consequently, we did not leverage synergies in the interviews we conducted and developed non-standardized deliverables.

This disorganized project management soon contributed to frustrations on both the client side and within the Consulting Group team, straining our day-to-day interactions. Midway through the engagemen...