Pros and cons of In-house vs. Outsourcing Projects
As a school leader, you must continually evaluate your team’s performance against your institutional goals. When you find an opportunity for improvement, you can address the issue in one of two ways—solve it from within or hire a consultant to support your team.
In my experience, schools often invest in consultants when a project impacts the school’s revenue and sustainability. Schools consistently hire for strategic planning, capital campaigns, enrollment, marketing, and financial planning. However, there are consultants ready to assist schools in all areas of school leadership—academic programming, facilities, DEIJB, safety and security, and more. (Check out my School Partner Friday Features on LinkedIn for a wide range of school partners.)
Common Project Catalysts
When school leaders seek to enhance school operations or programs, the school must invest time, staffing, and financial resources to make it happen. The precursor to many projects can be found in one of these events happening on campus:
Change in Leadership
Accreditation
Strategic Planning
Enrollment Demand
Fundraising Growth
Program Audits or Expansion
School Merger
Determining Your Capacity
Having your FTEs execute on addressing a specific need is typically the most cost-effective way to move a strategic initiative forward. Yet, before making a decision solely based on dollars and cents, ask yourself these questions:
What are the specific strengths of your internal team compared with the work to be done?
What expertise do you have at the Board level, among the faculty, or at the community level to assist in evaluating the path forward?
How quickly do you need to execute the project?
Can the internal team manage their day-to-day responsibilities and spend adequate time and energy on the strategic project?
Would having an outside perspective be helpful?
If you conclude that you have the skills and people needed in-house, then having your internal team complete the project is advantageous because they know the school’s mission and its stakeholders best.
Hiring a School Partner
Schools often encounter several internal hurdles that lead to hiring a consultant. What are those typical hurdles?
Lack of Time
Lack of Experience
Specific Expertise Needed
Lack of trust in the project
Need to break out of groupthink patterns
When seeking an outside perspective, use the following steps to ensure alignment between your school’s mission and the school partner (consultant/vendor).
Assign one person to lead the project and build a committee to help inform your needs and the school partner selection process.
The committee should write a detailed scope of work and develop a list of potential firms to approach for support. You can review the NAIS Directory as a starting point for potential school partners, but not all school partners are in the NAIS directory.
The committee should then complete their initial due diligence (reviewing websites, work samples, published marketing materials, and past clients) to narrow the list of school partners.
Share your scope of work with the selected school partners, review their proposals and then schedule meetings to discuss their proposal (ask questions about their process, the team, the timeline, and pricing) to seek clarity.
The committee should then complete a rubric on each proposal to avoid groupthink. The committee chair should then tabulate and share the results before leading a discussion with the committee about the selected firms.
Once you have a clear front runner, the final step is to check references to ensure the firm’s track record is consistent with the work you want to accomplish and negotiate the contract.
The key is to align your school’s needs with a firm that understands your school’s mission, can work collaboratively with your committee, and can deliver on the scope of work. If you need help with your school partner search, LeadTeam Partners is prepared to help you create a school partner list and lead the process to help find your next school partner.
