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Consulting Engagement Delivery

Scope it, price it, protect it, land it — and get paid, in Nigeria, on time.

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About this course

The fourth course in the Consulting Mastery sequence: the operational and commercial machinery of running an engagement, from the signature to the final invoice. It is built on three facts that make consulting delivery unlike ordinary project work — the client co-produces your timeline, you sell perishable days, and you are contracted for a deliverable but remembered for an outcome. The course opens with the statement of work as the document that settles every future dispute in advance: concrete exclusions where scope fights die, acceptance criteria a stranger could verify, a two-track timeline with the day-for-day clause, payment tied to milestones and a pause clause for overdue invoices. Then the money: estimating bottom-up with Nigerian friction priced explicitly and a reference class that beats imagination; the four pricing models and when each one hurts you; and the collections craft — mobilisation, same-day invoicing, the courteous chase, and the discipline of never financing a client into your own insolvency. Delivery itself gets a weekly engine — the two-track workplan, the holy standing call, dependencies that carry a name and a consequence — plus the lesson every imported methodology omits: designing around power, connectivity, fuel, movement and bank downtime so infrastructure misbehaviour is absorbed rather than fatal. Scope creep is met with machinery, not willpower: every ask triaged, out-of-scope priced rather than refused, a change log that turns absorbed favours into visible gifts and deferred items into the second phase. Risk runs on a short live register with named early indicators; adoption runs on the ADKAR model, pilots, and reinforcement defined as a number, a name and a date; quality runs on a definition of done, cold-eyes separation and version discipline; and the close is a designed event — acceptance against written criteria, a real handover, the final invoice that hangs on it, and the review that makes the next engagement better. Deliberately does not re-teach generic project management — lifecycles, WBS, Gantt charts and tools live in the project management course — and does not cover winning the work, which is the fifth course. The capstone is the full commercial pack for one real engagement: a statement of work, a bottom-up estimate with its friction priced, a defended fee, a live risk register, and the change protocol demonstrated on a real ask.

This platform's project management course teaches the general craft — lifecycles, work breakdowns, Gantt charts — and this course assumes it. A consulting engagement, though, is a strange kind of project, and treating it as an ordinary one is how new consultants lose money and clients at the same time. Three things make it strange: the client is inside the work, not outside it; you are selling a scarce and perishable inventory, your own days; and the thing you deliver is not the thing you are judged on. Delivery discipline for consultants starts from those three facts.

What you'll learn

Course syllabus — 12 lessons

  1. An engagement is not a project14 min
  2. The statement of work: the document that decides whether you get paid17 min
  3. Estimating: the planning fallacy is billed to you15 min
  4. Pricing models: four ways to charge, and when each one hurts you16 min
  5. Getting paid: mobilisation, milestones, and the courteous chase15 min
  6. Scope creep: the change protocol in action15 min
  7. The delivery engine: cadence, the client team, and dependencies15 min
  8. Power, data, fuel, cash: delivering through Nigerian infrastructure16 min
  9. Engagement risk: a register that actually gets used15 min
  10. Adoption: ADKAR and the recommendation that actually happens16 min
  11. Quality: the second pass that protects your name14 min
  12. Closing well: acceptance, handover, and the engagement's afterlife15 min

Your project

The commercial pack for one real engagement

A written pack of roughly 1,400 to 2,200 words containing: the engagement objective and client-side cast; the full statement of work with concrete exclusions, verifiable acceptance criteria, the two-track timeline, payment structure and assumptions; the bottom-up estimate with visible friction allowance, internal range and external commitment; the fee with floor and anchor computed, the model defended against an alternative, the client-facing price sentence and the discount trade; the five-row risk register with observable indicators; the worked change note with options, the 'surely included' reply, and a three-entry change log; and the landing plan with the ADKAR diagnosis, acceptance walk-through, handover contents and self-review questions.

Certificates on Skillnaija are earned, not issued for attendance: you submit this project, it is graded against a rubric, and passing issues a certificate anyone can verify. See the full project brief, rubric and free workbook →

Frequently asked questions

Is Consulting Engagement Delivery free?

Yes. Consulting Engagement Delivery is completely free on Skillnaija. You need a free account to open the lessons, and there is no charge for the course, the project, or the certificate.

How long does Consulting Engagement Delivery take to complete?

6 weeks · ~4 hrs/week. There are 12 lessons, about 3 hours of material in total. You learn at your own pace and your progress is saved.

Do I need any experience to start Consulting Engagement Delivery?

Intermediate. Some prior grounding in the subject will help you move faster.

What will I learn in Consulting Engagement Delivery?

You will build practical skills in Plan every engagement on two tracks — what you owe and what the client owes, with dates and names on both, Count your honest billable days and derive the day rate your practice actually requires, Write a statement of work whose exclusions, acceptance criteria and day-for-day clause settle disputes in advance, Tie payment to mobilisation and named milestones, with a pause clause you reference once and warmly, Estimate bottom-up from costed tasks, price Nigerian friction explicitly, and keep the reference class that improves you, Choose between time-based, fixed, retainer and value-based pricing per engagement — and know when each one hurts, Price between your floor and the client's anchor, and trade discounts instead of cutting them bare, Invoice same-day, chase warmly in writing, and read a client's cash cycle before extending them credit, Triage every ask against written scope and price out-of-scope work instead of refusing it, Run the weekly delivery engine: the workplan, the standing call, named dependencies, the Friday half-hour, Design delivery so power, connectivity, fuel and cash failures are absorbed rather than fatal, Keep a five-row live risk register with early indicators, and escalate as options rather than grievances, Diagnose failed adoption by the first missing ADKAR letter, pilot changes, and define reinforcement as a number, a name and a date, Hold deliverables to a definition of done with cold-eyes review and version discipline, Close as a ceremony: acceptance against criteria, a real handover, the final invoice, and the review that feeds the next engagement. Every lesson is written for a Nigerian context, with examples drawn from how the work is actually done and paid for here.

Do I get a certificate for Consulting Engagement Delivery?

Yes, but it has to be earned. You complete the course project — The commercial pack for one real engagement and submit it for grading. Passing the project issues a verifiable certificate; finishing the lessons alone does not.

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