Consulting Rules of Thumb

My Mostly Useful Guides (MUGs) that may save you.

If you’ve been in consulting for more than five minutes, you have likely already started collecting your own consulting survival hacks. These are the unspoken rules of thumb that live in the grey space between the official methodology and what actually works on a Tuesday night at 11 pm when you are putting a proposal together.

These are the messy, improvised, quietly brilliant guidelines that keep both projects and consultants sane. They are not perfect and they are not laws. They are the duct tape and zip ties of consulting: inelegant, surprisingly reliable, and occasionally life-saving.

Here are a few I have brewed up for myself over the years. Sip them slowly, adapt them to your own taste, or create your own house blend (yes, that is the consulting café reference). Just remember the first rule first.

Many of my Mostly Useful Guidelines (MUGs) relate to the rule of thirds or have a 3 in them. That may be a coincidence, but it helps me remember them.

MUG #1: If reason clashes with the MUG, reason wins

My MUG is a practical guideline born from experience, not from formulas or methodology binders. It is distilled wisdom that helps you make quick, decent calls when the data is incomplete and the clock is ticking. Treat these as scope guidelines, not immovable contract clauses. Follow them when they light the way, but do not be afraid to change course when your judgment says otherwise.

MUG #2: Consulting revenue is a 3-way split: salary, costs, profit

Imagine your practice as a small muffin. One bite pays salaries, one bite covers costs, and the last bite is profit (1/3, 1/3, 1/3). Of course, this entirely depends on how generous or hungry your Partner is. The second bite covers things like facilities, bench time, IT, compliance, training, sales and marketing.

Consulting tip: Find out where your firm sits on the high-volume/low-margin to low-volume/high-margin spectrum. Once you know, you will understand why you are either buried in completing templates or free to invent them.

MUG #3: One page of deliverable equals a consulting day of effort

This one can vary, but over the years I have found it is more right than not. If your deliverable is likely to be a 30-page document, treat it as a starting point of 30 consulting days of effort. This rule of thumb is a helpful way to unpack client expectations. If you have calculated 60 days for a 60-page deliverable and they expect to pay for only 30 days, there is something to unpack with them.

Remember, a page of writing involves research, stakeholder interviews, analysis, editing, aligning stakeholders, incorporating client feedback, and more.

MUG #4: The Rule of Delivery Thirds (Consulting Edition)

Aim to have your deliverables well formulated and agreed by about one-third into the project schedule and largely drafted by the two-thirds mark. The last third is to bulletproof your deliverables with your stakeholders.

Why? This MUG is your wake-up call. If you have spent 80 percent of your engagement fees by the two-thirds mark of your schedule and have not started the key deliverables, you are in trouble.