The 540 Professional Consulting Engagement: Confidentiality

Confidentiality

To our future students: I'll offer assistance to individual students (by name) and we will discuss projects at a conceptual level.  We cannot, however, include client / company names or sensitive details pertaining to any of the projects, for the following reasons.

Our 540 consulting engagements frequently focus on highly confidential, business critical challenges and require our students to gain access to proprietary information.  In these situations, the client may request a Confidentiality Agreement (CA) be signed by all parties with access to the data or information.  Our office uses a standard CA for the majority of our clients: a copy of this form can be obtained by our students from the Academic Leader (me).  

With this CA in place, we are obligated to protect the client's interests, including securely holding the final 540 project report for up to five years, with no or limited access.

To our current students: 

We will discuss expectations for performance, our processes, the proposal, report structure and the nature of your work at a conceptual level.  Here's an example.  James is working with a high-tech client who has enjoyed a technological advantage, but competitors are beginning to catch up.  His project can be framed as an analysis of strategy and structure.  Strategy in this case is defined as the company's position in the technology landscape (among competitors), with the relevant target markets defining the scope of analyses. Structure is defined as the development of the company's professional administrative structures / processes, since the founder may want to explore exit strategies in the next five years.

James, feel free to share details or ask questions through comments to this post.  I'll proof any comments prior to approval, so we don't share too much.

David