A sharp engagement is a short, fast consulting project that surprises clients with speed and delivers both a valuable artifact and observable business change. This requires hands-on work, not delegation or automation, and lets consultants command higher rates.
What is a sharp engagement? I often talk about consulting needing to be short and sharp to be most successful. And a sharp engagement should feel very fast. The client should feel not exhausted, but exhilarated by the experience of having worked with you. Should be surprised by how quickly everything came together. And should be very pleased with the output, with the result, not only in their, the artifact that got generated, but also in the way it got done and the change they now see in their business. Those qualities of sharpness are hard to achieve if you are delegating it down and turn it into, well, almost automated processes and SOPs. It comes from being consistently remarkable. But when you can do that, you will find that this easily pays for itself in higher rates. And because the clients are willing to pay the higher rates because they get those extraordinary results because of the sharpness of the engagement.
