Department of Statistics Seminar
North Carolina State University

presents

Dr. Douglas A. Zahn
and Dr. Daniel Boroto

Florida State University

"Systematically improving the quality of your consulting and teaching services"

ABSTRACT

Systematically we define a consultation to be a conversation with a purpose and intended result. This broad definition includes traditional one-on-one consultations, collaboration, reports to superiors, supervisory conversations with members of staff, and teaching in the group of activities that our work addresses.

We define a successful consultation to be one in which

• the client's wants and needs are identified and addressed,
• the session ends with an implementable plan,
• the plan is implemented, and
• the results of the implementation stand up to external scrutiny.

We will discuss the six domains which we use to observe consultations: technical, structural, relationship, attitude, experience, and language. These domains can be thought of as tools to use to analyze a complex data set, namely a videotape of a practice consultation. This use of the tools will be demonstrated in the seminar.

The concepts to be discussed are generic: Our UK course participants have included statisticians, information technologists, administrators, human resource development trainers, marketing personnel, managers, and support staff. The seminar will focus on the five non-technical domains.

Friday, October 15, 1999

3:35 - 4:35 pm

206 Cox Hall

Refreshments will be served on the second floor of Dabney Hall (left of Room 222) at 3:00 pm.