Consultancy Challenge: A week to change the world

What is the Consultancy Challenge?

One of our most sought-after events, this is a 5-day opportunity to develop your project management, stakeholder management, and consultancy skills. We provide training and then you'll develop your skills 'on the job' during the week. 

Design sprints are popular in business settings because they accelerate the innovation process and foster a collaborative, hands-on approach to problem-solving. You'll be accelerating the innovation process for a non-profit community organisation so you can be confident that your work will translate into tangible social impact.

A whirlwind of creativity and collaboration, this week is a structured, time-constrained process where teams collaboratively work to solve a problem, develop new ideas, or create prototypes in a short period of time.

By booking a ticket via this page, you are expressing interest to this event. We will ask you to confirm your space closer to the time. If the event becomes oversubscribed, we will email all ticket holders asking them to confirm their space.

• Day 1: Understand & Define
  Team gather to understand the problem or challenge they’re addressing. This involves research, expert interviews, and mapping out the existing landscape. They then define the goals, user personas, and critical success factors. It also involves working out the skill set in the team to working effectively.
• Day 2: Ideate
  Students brainstorm and sketch out various solutions. Each team member explores different angles and approaches. This phase encourages creative thinking and a diversity of ideas.
• Day 3: Decide
  The team reviews the solutions and decides on the most promising idea to develop further. This involves voting, discussing the pros and cons, and ultimately selecting a direction to pursue.
• Day 4: Prototype
  A realistic prototype of the chosen solution is built. This is a rough but functional version that demonstrates the concept. The team collaborates to create this prototype quickly, focusing on key features and user interactions.
• Day 5: Test
  The prototype is tested with real users to gather feedback. Observations and insights are collected to understand what works and what doesn’t. This helps refine the solution and identify areas for improvement.

Outline of the week

What will I learn?

This is like "big sister" event to our 1-day events, Social Hackathons. Similar skills will be developed but you'll have the luxury of a whole week. Deeper connections will be made, and networking and professional development too. We anticipate you'll walk away with the following:

• Consultation skills, as you interrogate your Challenger and what they want, need, and expect
• An appreciation for the non-profit sector and the work they do
• Insight into the business principles of charities and other non-profits like social enterprises
• Your ability to listen and work as part of a team, putting the team first ahead of your own needs
• Experience of a UK working environment
• Networking
• Ability to build a team, acknowledging different skills and experiences

Skills you'll flex

• Teamwork: how good a team player are you really?
• Leadership: where are you in your leader journey?
• Communication: do you listen well or are you all talk?
• Sharing power: are you prepared to value knowledge from other sectors?
• Problem-solving: can you identify issues, make an analysis, and generate solutions?
• Reporting & presenting: how good are you at pulling together info to present in a short time?
• Pitching: can you tell a good story, with the right information, in a way to grab attention?

I feel a bit shy

We know that feeling! Look, we're not going to lie, there's going to be 100 people at the first and last days and during the rest of the week, you'll be in a team of up to 20 students. It might feel a little uncomfortable at first but we will do everything we can to make sure it's a safe space and everyone is welcome. We have Student Event Hosts at all our events and we have ice-breakers specifically designed to help people forms bonds and understand each other. Whatever you feel at the beginning of the week, by the end of the week you will finish in a completely different way. This is a pretty transformative experience. We're really happy to talk it through if you have any specific anxieties.

How do I know if I'll like it?

Check out what Mya said about their experience during the Consultancy Challenge we ran in 2022 in a blog for Green Shoots Foundation, the Challenger.

Other ExtendED Learning opportunities at your Students' Union

The SU is excited to be hosting a variety of ExtendED Learning opportunities during Term 3. Why not take a look at all we have to offer via our ExtendED Learning webpage, where you can find further information about each event and book your space.