As part of the Consultancy elective, we have been asked to look back at the ‘emerging markets week’ in the first year and consider how we might go about things differently now. Our week was spent in Sao Paolo working in small team of (MBA) consultants for Alcoa as part of their preparation for Brazil’s imminent mega events.

Luckily we were not all stalwart corporates – we were a diverse bunch and had a couple of practising consultants in our midst. But I had no measure on the level of experience and best practice they were carrying through – particularly while I was muddling through. So, a review of my notes should be interesting. I will pass judgement.

• We had received a broad brief before we departed the UK. So we agreed that we should make contact to make introductions beforehand and propose a schedule of activities for our first day. [Good.]
• We expressed some initial concerns about the broad nature of the brief before meeting face-to-face. [Bad.]
• We met as a team and identified what sector research we might need and be able to garner from school and colleagues before our travels. [Good.]
• On arrival in Brazil, we developed a set of relevant diagnostic questions before arriving on site so that we could become productive as soon as possible. We included a spectrum of questions from business objectives and profit sources to type of uses of alumina and aluminium hydroxide. [Good.]
• In the first meeting, we checked our understanding of client expectations. [Good.]
• We outlined our proposed programme of data gathering [Good.]
• We did not adjust the programme during the week. [Bad.]
• We agreed our mid-term milestone and scheduled an update meeting. [Good.]
• We did not check business norms about breaks, meals and smoking etc. [Bad.]
• When gathering data through interviews and research, we were aware of framing traps and various cognitive biases. But the limit of a week and the language barriers did not allow for time to examine the issues from multiple viewpoints to identify/draw out. [Bad.]
• We split up into sub teams and did not roam around their offices as a pack. [Good.]
• We made practical, specific recommendations. [Good.]
• Despite a conscious decision to avoid all idioms, we did not assume clients understood what we were saying – often repeating or rephrasing important points, summarise, and giving examples. [Good.]
• We did not swamp Alcoa client with ‘clever’ models. [Good.]
• We addressed the ‘so what’ factor by creating a sense of urgency and clearly expressing risks and rewards. [Good.]

On balance, I thought we did a pretty good job. We were commercially engaged in the project and got a good mark, to boot. [Idiom.]