What is Process Consulting?

Process consulting is the vehicle through which clients are most often engaged in organization development projects.  There are many ways of looking at process consulting.  One is to distinguish it from expert consulting.  In expert consulting, the client has a problem which they believe they have little or no capacity to solve.  They bring in an expert to tell them what to do or to do it for them.

In process consulting, the consultant is trying to collaboratively help the organization add capacity.  Thus, the job of the process consultant is, in part, to be a "learning architect" -- to design settings that lead to learning, insight, clarity, interpersonal connections and energy for change.  To bring value, process consultants support learning; they build elements of discorvey and opportunities for innovative solutions into their work with the client.

Process consulting almost always includes a data collecting strategy that intends to make the organization more visible to itself.  Some examples of process consulting questions:

• What is the point of what we are doing?

• What are we doing well and how could we leverage this into new areas?

• What has to be left behind before we can move into something new? 

• What is the real value of our product and service?

• What personal meaning do people find in what we are doing?

• What would happen if we did nothing?

• What are the capacities and strengths that we are not using fully?

• What are we leaving for the next generation?

Process consulting and its close relative organization development share a set of values that guide work. Some of these include:

• Respect and inclusion- values and uses the perspectives and abilities of all

• Collaboration- builds collaborative relationships between practitioner and client while encouraging collaboration throughout the client system

• Authenticity- develops a respect for personal and organizational truth telling

• Empowerment- increase individual autonomy in service to organization goals to support improved innovativeness and task accomplishment