Consulting Lessons Learned 22: Asking questions
You will often work together with your whole project team in the same room all day long. This leads to a phenomenon I like to call the “solution proximity” dilemma. What does that mean?
As an intern or new-hire consultant you will have new questions all the time. Since your whole project team sits just a few meters away from you in the same room, asking questions is easy. And while asking questions is important, this often leads to the situation that especially inexperienced consultants tend to ask questions the moment they pop up in their head.
Please don’t do that! It is difficult enough to concentrate on your work in crowded team rooms. Please don’t interrupt your team mates every few minutes with a new question.
The solution is easy: Collect all questions you have and agree on regular touchpoints with your colleagues to discuss these topics.
Personally, I like to create separate ToDo lists for every major project team and also client counterpart. In these lists I collect all topics I want to discuss with them individually. Once the alignment meeting comes, I just open the list and make a well-prepared impression without forgetting anything.
