Vibe Consulting - Turning AI into Your Consultancy Superpower

SPEAKER

Dr. Alan Warr BA MBA MSc PhD MBCS CITP

AGENDA

18:30 - Event start with welcome and notices

18:40 - Workshop

19:40 - Discussion and next steps

20:00 - Workshop ends with networking for venue attendees at the BCS London office

20:30 - Event close.

SYNOPSIS

Some notable AI industry leaders have predicted the end of management consultancy! But two recent AI expert panels at the BCS concluded differently that AI is both a threat and an opportunity for consultants. Our speaker served on both panels and picks up from those discussions and aims to start to ground this work, so that consultants can act to counter the threats and (as with past waves of global change) seize the opportunities and provide leadership. Indeed, our speaker will boldly suggest a new “golden age” for consultants awaits, if the profession gets this challenge right.

The content of the workshop will be practitioner focused:

• A review of industry efforts to date
• Some technical content on good practices for prompting LLMs & co-creating
• Conceptual introduction to fine-tuning, RAG, agentic AI and AI platforms
• Early theoretical propositions for AI’s value as a co-worker in consultancies
• Proposed actions consultancies and consultants must take now.

Although this workshop will combine some technical demos, the time available limits these and means the workshop will sometimes need to be at a conceptual and introductory level. So, this workshop is aiming at consultants and other professionals needing an on-ramp to ensure they are not left behind or want pointers to how they can get an “early mover” advantage. Specialists and experts in AI may find the content too introductory. Non consultants are welcomed but the cases and focus will be the practice of consultancy, and they will need to adapt it to their personal context. The content will be IT/AI vendor neutral.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Alan Warr is the past Chair and current Treasurer of the BCS Consultancy Specialist Group. He has four decades of consultancy experience specialising in IT and AI transformation. He has worked for major consultancies such as PA, BT, Capita, KPMG. And he has also been an internal consultant with Revlon, Bupa and the NHS. He worked himself up the consultancy ranks from analyst programmer to the leadership of significant practices. In recent years he has been an independent consultant with his own practice. And he has contributed to the work of the BCS as a volunteer for many years. Academically, he holds an MSc in Computer Science, a Cranfield MBA and an LBS PhD in the strategic management of technology. His current main area of research is in applying AI to transforming consultancy.

Our events are for adults aged 16 years and over.

BCS is a membership organisation. If you enjoy this event, please consider joining BCS. You’ll be very welcome. You’ll receive access to many exclusive career development tools, an introduction to a thriving professional community and also help us Make IT Good For Society. Join BCS today:

https://www.bcs.org/membership/events

If you are attending in person, please familiarise yourself with the Visitor Instructions for the BCS London Office.

Please note, if you have any accessibility needs, please let us know via groups@bcs.uk and we’ll work with you to make suitable arrangements.

For overseas delegates who wish to attend the event, please note that BCS does not issue invitation letters.

THIS EVENT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

BCS Consultancy specialist group

Visit: Consultancy specialist group | BCS

Image credit: Photo by Sharan Pagadala on Unsplash