Questions to Ask a Consultant
For anyone about to engage a consultant or advisory firm. Twenty questions on how they read your problem, who would actually do the work, what they need from your team, what counts as finished, fees and overruns, who owns the deliverables, conflicts, and references.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Based on what we have told you so far, what do you think our problem is?
Why ask it
This is the closest thing to a free work sample. A consultant who reframes the problem, or says they cannot tell yet and explains what they would need to see, is thinking. One who repeats your description back with their service attached is selling.
Have you done this specific piece of work before, and what did it produce?
Why ask it
Adjacent experience is common and often fine, but you should know which it is. Ask what the client did differently afterwards, because a consultant who can only describe the deliverable may never have seen it used.
Who would actually do this work, and how much of it would be you?
Why ask it
The senior person in the room is frequently there to win the engagement. Ask for names, the share of hours each will contribute, and whether those hours are committed in the contract rather than intended.
What is the mix of senior and junior time in your estimate?
Why ask it
This drives both the fee and the quality, and it is where proposals differ most while looking alike. A heavily junior team can be right for data work and wrong for a judgement call, so ask which parts each level is doing.
What do you need from us: whose time, how much of it, and what data?
Why ask it
Engagements fail on the client side more often than the consultant side, usually because nobody costed the internal hours. Ask for a list of interviews, data extracts, and decisions required, with dates, before you agree to anything.
What does finished look like, and how will we know we got there?
Why ask it
You want an observable end state, not a delivery date for a document. If the answer describes only outputs, ask what should be true about your organization afterwards that is not true now.
What are the deliverables, and what happens to them after you leave?
Why ask it
A model nobody can update and a report nobody can act on are the standard disappointments. Ask who on your side will be able to maintain what they build, and what training or handover is in scope.
Are you recommending or implementing, and where exactly does your involvement stop?
Why ask it
The gap between a recommendation and a change is where most consulting value is lost. Get the boundary written down, along with what happens if implementation reveals the recommendation was impractical.
How are you charging: fixed fee, day rate, retainer, or tied to results?
Why ask it
Each structure creates a different pull. Day rates reward duration, fixed fees reward finishing early and can reward doing less, and success fees invite argument about attribution. Ask which one they proposed and why they think it fits.
What would make this cost more than the estimate?
Why ask it
Ask for the two or three most likely causes on a job like yours: missing data, more interviews, an extra round of review. A consultant with no answer has either not thought about it or does not intend to tell you until it happens.
How do your engagements usually end: on schedule, extended, or renewed?
Why ask it
A firm whose work always continues has either found a genuine ongoing need or built a business on extensions. Ask for the proportion, and for an example of a piece of work they finished and walked away from.
Have you worked for our competitors, and how do you handle that?
Why ask it
Sector experience is valuable and it cuts both ways. Ask what they will and will not carry between clients, whether any conflict clause applies during the engagement, and how long it lasts afterwards.
Who owns the models, code, and materials you produce for us?
Why ask it
Consultants frequently retain rights to their frameworks and tooling, which can leave you unable to modify something you paid for. Settle ownership and usage rights in the contract, particularly for anything you will depend on operationally.
What do you do when the answer is that we should not go ahead?
Why ask it
A consultant paid to design a program has an obvious reason not to conclude it is a bad idea. Ask for a time they told a client to stop, and what it cost them. No example at all is informative.
What is a recommendation of yours that a client rejected, and what happened after that?
Why ask it
The answer shows whether they can be overruled and stay useful, or whether they disengage. Note whether they describe the client's reasoning fairly or simply as a failure to listen.
Which of your projects did not work, and why not?
Why ask it
Everyone with a real track record has one. What you are listening for is whether the explanation includes any of their own decisions, or whether it is entirely about the client, the market, or a change of sponsor.
Who on our side needs to be behind this for it to work?
Why ask it
Experienced consultants know that a missing sponsor sinks the work, and they will name the roles they need engaged. This also tells you whether they have understood your organization or only your brief.
How would you find out if something we told you is wrong?
Why ask it
Clients pass on internal assumptions as fact all the time. You want to hear about triangulation: talking to people outside the sponsoring team, checking figures against source systems, testing the story with customers.
If we spoke six months after this ends, what would you expect to have changed?
Why ask it
This forces a claim you can hold them to and often reveals how modest the realistic outcome is. A confident answer with numbers is either a considered judgement or an overreach, and either is worth knowing now.
Which clients can I speak to, including one where the work stopped early?
Why ask it
Reference lists are curated. Asking for an engagement that ended badly, or ended sooner than planned, is where you learn how they behave when a client becomes unhappy, which is the situation you are insuring against.
Buying Consulting Work Well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before You Engage Anyone
Write Down the Decision You Need to Make
Not the analysis you want, the decision it will inform, and who will make it. Briefs written as requests for research produce documents. Briefs written around a decision produce something someone acts on.
Buy a Small First Phase
A short, fixed-scope diagnostic gives you a working relationship to judge and a natural point to stop. It also reveals how a firm behaves when the work is not yet profitable for them.
Name an Owner on Your Side
One person with the authority to give access, resolve conflicting internal answers, and accept the deliverable. Engagements without that person drift, and the consultant will not say so until the final presentation.
Cost Your Own Time
Add up the internal hours the plan requires: interviews, data pulls, review meetings, steering. That number frequently rivals the fee, and knowing it changes which proposal is actually cheaper.
What to Settle in Writing
- 1The named people, and the share of hours each is committed to deliver
- 2The definition of done, in terms of what will be true rather than what will be delivered
- 3Ownership and usage rights for models, code, data, and documents
- 4How scope changes are priced and who has to approve them before work continues
- 5Confidentiality, and any restriction on working with named competitors during the engagement
- 6A handover session, in scope and scheduled, so the work survives their departure
- 7The exit terms, including notice and what you receive if you stop early
Common Pitfalls
Hiring to Settle an Internal Argument
Consultants brought in to break a deadlock are usually captured by whoever wrote the brief, and the losing side treats the output as an attack. If that is the real situation, say so to the consultant and ask how they would handle it.
Judging the Proposal by the Pitch Team
The people who present are often not the people who deliver. Ask who would be on the job next month, meet them, and put their names and hours in the contract.
Accepting a Report as the Outcome
A document that changes nothing is the most common way this money is wasted. Agree in advance who owns each recommendation, by what date, and how progress will be reviewed after the consultants leave.
Letting Scope Grow Without a Decision
Additions arrive framed as small extensions of work already underway. Require every one to be priced and approved in writing, even the ones you intend to say yes to, so the total remains visible.