Consulting firms need to retain what their people learn. Too often, a team finishes an engagement and moves on, leaving another team to solve the same problem from scratch six months later. That wastes experience the firm has already paid to acquire. Knowledge management should be part of delivery, not something everybody hopes to get around to once the project ends.
Every engagement should leave behind useful knowledge where appropriate and permitted. Architecture patterns, estimation guidance, scripts, templates, and decision records can help the next team start from a better position. Capture why an approach was chosen and the conditions it depended on, so the next person can judge whether it fits. Remove client-confidential details and give reusable material an owner who can keep it current.
The hundredth project should benefit from what the company learned during the first ninety-nine. Make that knowledge easy to find and include reviewing it in the start of the next engagement. Otherwise, you are renting individual brains by the hour without building much of a consulting capability.
This post is part of my 25 lessons from 25 years in consulting series, exploring what it takes to build a consulting firm that delivers for clients and supports the people doing the work.
From leadership and employee experience to sales and delivery, the series comes back to one idea: a consulting company should be its own best client.
Have a lesson of your own? Share what has worked, what hasn’t, or what you wish more consulting firms understood in the comments.