Consulting: How to collaborate with other consultants

Tomorrow I will travel to Orlando for the 2009 American Evaluation Association Annual Conference. http://www.eval.org/eval2009/default.htm One of the presentations I am involved in is a panel titled "Starting and Succeeding as an Independent Evaluation Consultant". Here's one of the things I will tell the audience, many of whom are new or young evaluators and have not worked as an independent evaluator:

Statement: Collaborations are a good way to understand what it means to be an independent evaluation consultant.

However, I always present this as the caveat to the statement above:

Caveat: Collaboration implies direction both ways.

I always present this caveat because sometimes persons misunderstand what is meant by collaboration. I've had people tell me that if I write the proposal they are happy to do most of the work (and I guess get most of the money). In what way is that a collaboration and why would I do that? What incentive is there for me to "collaborate" with this person? It feels more as if that person is trying to ride on my coattails. While I am flattered that he or she thinks she can go far doing such, they will have to think again.

Before suggesting someone collaborate with you, it may be important first to ask, “What do I have to offer the other person?” before asking “What does that other person have to offer me?". Then make an offer no one can refuse – but one which recognizes your own value and the value of the other person instead of minimizing both. If you cannot answer why I should want to collaborate with you, then why would I?

If I were to graph the value of collaborations on an x-y axis, where x represents what Evaluator X brings to the collaboration and y represents what Evaluator Y contributes to the evaluation, the "value" is maximized when both x and y values are the highest. x and y do not have to be equal, but both should be high to see a benefit in collaboration.

One can see this as well if one views a square divided into 4 equal parts. In one square the contributions of both evaluators is low and thus the overall value of collaboration is low. In the diagonal square both evaluators contribute greatly to the evaluation and the value is high. The other squares represent the cases when contribution is unequal (low from one, high from the other) and thus the value of collaboration is not maximized.

Thus one needs both evaluators in a 2-person collaboration to contribute greatly to the process for the actual collaboration to be of great value.

I believe I bring value to collaborations and enjoy the opportunity to work with someone who also brings some other value to a collaboration, whether it is a new method, new way to engage stakeholders, new means of reporting data, etc. These persons need not be experts and can even be new to evaluation, as long as they can define what value they are able to contribute. Collaborations are great ways to learn, but beware of them being mentorships in disguise.