CXO

19 books for an IT consultant's library

By // August 13, 2010, 9:08 AM PST // @MWeilage

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  • Managing the Professional Service Firm

    This IT Consultant post features all 19 book recommendations in list format.

    Managing the Professional Service Firm
    Rick Freedman writes: "David Maister's classic is the acknowledged bible in this field, with its mix of practical advice and experience-based wisdom."

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  • The Intellect Industry

    The Intellect Industry
    Rick Freedman writes: "Mark C. Scott does an outstanding job of explaining the basic financial elements of running a consulting business. Scott looks at consulting firms from the perspective of a hypothetical investor, and outlines the financial and practice metrics that indicate whether a firm is healthy and profitable."

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  • The Business of Consulting

    The Business of Consulting
    Rick Freedman writes: "Elaine Biech's book is the best resource I've found for walking consultants through the basic operational requirements of running a practice."

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  • The Consultant's Legal Guide

    The Consultant's Legal Guide
    Rick Freedman says that Elaine Biech's follow-up to The Business of Consulting is "indispensable for those who write their own contracts or engagement letters."

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  • How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession

    How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession
    Rick Freedman writes: "Alan Weiss, the prolific and ubiquitous author of numerous books and articles on this topic, is perhaps the best known expert in this niche. In this book, he presents outstanding advice on using seminars, articles, and other guerilla marketing techniques to differentiate yourself from the competition."

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  • How to Acquire Clients

    How to Acquire Clients
    Rick Freedman writes: "In his aptly-named How to Acquire Clients, [Alan] Weiss outlines a structured and logical process for pursuing and landing engagements."

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  • Get Clients Now!

    Get Clients Now!
    Rick Freedman writes: "This is the most valuable book I've found in this area, though it is not strictly a consultant-focused book; it is targeted to any services professional who is trying to build a client list. C.J. Hayden offers a stepwise program for understanding your own marketing and promotional skills and deficiencies, and then building a plan to generate leads and pursue and close business."

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  • Proposal Development

    Proposal Development
    Rick Freedman writes: "In proposal planning and preparation, there's one book that I think stands out above the rest. Proposal Development by Bud Porter-Roth isn't consultant-focused, but it offers the clearest and most structured approach to proposal development, from the detailed review of the RFP or opportunity, through the organization of the firm in order to respond to bids efficiently. By offering a complete scenario from RFP to completed bid, and illustrating ideas with examples and samples, this book is my top pick for helping firms or individual consultants inject some discipline into their proposal process. I’ve used this book for years as the basis of my training and coaching."

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  • Facilitating with Ease!

    Facilitating with Ease!
    Rick Freedman writes: "On the tactical side, skills such as facilitation and presentation are required, if only to gain consensus and sell your solutions to stakeholders. In these areas, I swear by Facilitating with Ease! by Ingrid Bens."

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  • Inspire Any Audience

    Inspire Any Audience
    Rick Freedman also swears by Inspire Any Audience by Tony Jeary. He says Inspire Any Audience and Facilitating with Ease! "present a clear, concise, and easy-to-grasp framework for improving these tactical skills."

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  • Flawless Consulting

    Flawless Consulting
    Rick Freedman writes: "On the strategic side, the classic is Flawless Consulting by Peter Block. The author has provided generations of consultants with the practical skills of client engagement with humor and real-world scenarios that every practitioner will recognize."

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  • High-Impact Consulting

    High-Impact Consulting
    Rick Freedman writes: "Less widely known [than Flawless Consulting] but, in my view, just as valuable, is High-Impact Consulting by Robert Schaffer, which focuses on the difference between academic-style 'deliver a white paper and let the client figure it out' consulting, and consulting that really changes the client's business for the better."

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  • ReWork

    Rework
    Here's some of what Erik Eckel says about the book: "The responsibilities and pressures can prove so overwhelming that many consultants return to corporate IT. But those technology professionals and organizations seeking to secure long-term success as consultants can be best served following counterintuitive advice from 37signals' founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, who write in their best-seller Rework that simplifying services and processes and saying no to customer requests may prove the best business strategy."

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  • Unfolding the Napkin

    Unfolding the Napkin
    Erik Eckel recommends Dan Roam's Unfolding the Napkin, which is the follow up to his best-seller The Back of the Napkin. Erik writes, "I now apply the principles in Unfolding the Napkin every day in my IT consulting work. From basic client discovery meetings to Exchange server migration planning conferences to white board sessions scheduled with the purpose of finalizing multi-site point-to-point VPN deployments, now I'm a believer."

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  • How Doctors Think

    How Doctors Think
    Why would Rick Freedman recommend How Doctors Think by Dr. Jerome Groopman to IT consultants? Here's what he says: "Because the same sorts of prejudices, biases, or faulty thought patterns can also affect consultants, and have the potential to distort the consulting relationship and trick us into prescribing remedies that are inappropriate for the client. I believe that consultants, like other professionals, have a responsibility to examine their preconceptions and responses, and to make sure that the advice they give is based on a clear reading of the 'patient's' best course of action, and not on unconscious triggers that may lead us, and our clients, down the wrong path."

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  • Information Technology Project Management

    Information Technology Project Management
    Rick Freedman writes: "Although it's a bit expensive, this text by Kathy Schwalbe does the best job of integrating PMI concepts with IT-focused case studies and exercises."

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  • Radical Project Management

    Radical Project Management
    Rick Freedman writes: "For starting the migration from traditional project management towards more agile, iterative methods, this book by Rob Thomsett is indispensable. For many of today's agile practitioners, this book was a revelation, bridging the gap from waterfall methodologies to more adaptive techniques."

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  • Rapid Development

    Rapid Development
    Rick Freedman writes: "For consultants who focus on software development, all the books in the series by Steve McConnell are fundamental."

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  • Software Project Survival Guide

    Software Project Survival Guide
    Rick Freedman recommends this book by Steve McConnell to consultants who focus on software development.

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Managing the Professional Service Firm

This IT Consultant post features all 19 book recommendations in list format.

Managing the Professional Service Firm
Rick Freedman writes: "David Maister's classic is the acknowledged bible in this field, with its mix of practical advice and experience-based wisdom."

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

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By Mary Weilage

Mary Weilage is a Feature Editor for CBS Interactive. She has worked for TechRepublic since 1999.