David A. Fields Consulting Group You’re going to read this article quickly.
I wrote it quickly.
Why?
Because speed matters.
At this moment in time, when AI agents are coming into their own and time-saving tools are popping up like daisies, it’s particularly important to focus your consulting firm on speed.
Injecting more speed into your consultancy will increase your value to clients, increase your success in the marketplace, and increase your entire team’s enjoyment level.
And, if you don’t accelerate your consulting firm, you risk being left behind.
The Obvious Benefits of Speed
The Faster You Complete a Task,
the More Value You Create
A prospect calls half a dozen consulting firms. Most firms take days or weeks to respond. You respond within hours.
Who’s more likely to win the project?
A client struggles with a problem. Your consulting firm could deliver a solution in two months or two weeks.
Which do you think the client values more?
You could hone a new piece of thought leadership over the next 18 months before bringing it to market, or you could reveal it to the world in 18 weeks.
Which will attract clients sooner?
You could hang onto processes that force you and your team to stay up until midnight preparing a deliverable, or you could push for methods that produce A+ outputs by dinner time, so everyone can spend their evening with their family.
Which plan creates a happier, more productive team?
In every case, speed wins.
Speed creates value. Speed attracts clients. Speed enables your firm to support healthy lifestyles.
The Faster You Can Complete a Task,
the More Likely You Are to Complete It
If your consulting firm can deliver a project in one week rather than one month, you have an extra three weeks of capacity to attract more clients, win more projects and generate even more value.
And here’s the kicker:
If you (or your team) can finish a project in one week rather than one month, you are more likely to finish it successfully!
There’s less time for derailment, distraction and deprioritization.
Speed is a force multiplier!
The Ironic, Hidden Benefit of Speed
Speed Doesn’t Require Quality Shortcuts.
Speed is a Shortcut to Quality
Fast doesn’t mean reckless.
You wouldn’t want your heart-surgeon skipping sutures in his quest for a new speed record.
On the other hand, finding ways to safely perform surgery faster reduces the risk of fatigue-induced errors, infection from circulating air, and so forth.
Similarly, if you’re relying on AI tools and automation to supercharge your consulting firm’s speed, ensure there’s a human-led quality assurance step in the loop.
Use speed as a forcing function to enhance your quality.
You have to improve your processes to ensure quality while accelerating your firm.
Hence, speed will improve your consulting.
Where to Create Speed
Inject Speed into Every Phase of Consulting
Create IP – Develop each idea expeditiously, then promptly test it in the market.
Build Visibility – Speed enables greater volume: more content, more outreach, more alliances.
Win Business – Respond immediately to inquiries and turn around proposals pronto.
Deliver Value – Produce results faster so that clients can enjoy success sooner. (Don’t confuse more time with more value.)
Learn and Improve – Ask for client (and team) feedback frequently. Why wait?
How to Increase Speed
Obey Your Deadlines – Set audacious deadlines and meet them. No excuses. This is the master key to speed.
Embrace AI – Actively, aggressively and carefully embed AI into your consulting firm. (If you’re not exactly sure how, reach out. We have specific guidance for embedding AI.)
Leverage Systems and Frameworks – Eliminate reinvention in your practice.
Adopt an Iterative Mindset – The “C to a B to an A” approach (also called “agile”) consistently yields better results in a fraction of the time compared to a linear approach.
Delegate Based on Speed. Set roles and egos aside at your consulting firm. Instead, pass work to the most capable, fastest resource. (While honoring the best use of each resource’s time.)
Has speed worked for you? How have you increased speed at your consulting firm?
Text and images are © 2026 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
David,
I recently had a newish CEO ask me to run a strategy session in six weeks time where his team and the board would land a new set of vision, mission, values, operating model, strategic priorities and dashboard. Yes all in one day!
A few years back, it would have been impossible but in 2025 I did it very successfully with exactly what you shared. Lots of 1:1 calls with each stakeholder in advance of the session to solicit insights and then validate our thinking. Drafting and iterating on all strategic statements literally started on Day One of the project. And AI in the background of every call picking up and helping process every point made by anyone on the project. AI also helped us instantly generate multiple versions of each aspect of our strategy that gave the CEO choices he would have never had in the old world of word smithing a single version of the truth by committee.
Having all our homework basically done (and largely validated) in advance meant the session focused on building organizational alignment by reconciling the 10% of strategy that was contentious not the 90% that already locked down. The best part was we got to spend most of our day not on editing vision and value statements but making them come alive through story telling and ideating moonshot projects.
Now turning this into a new offering for accelerated strategy development. Speed is critical!
Kulvir S. Gill
Amazing case study, Kulvir. There’s a lot to learn from how you integrated AI into the process to take out the grueling, time-consuming, largely unproductive bits and focus the client on the high-value pieces. Well done!
Hey David,
I’ve taken the step of embedding AI across all of my business processes, and the gains in speed and productivity have been tremendous. Beyond using existing AI tools, I also develop my own ML, DL, and computer vision applications, and I build custom apps that integrate with LLMs to solve client problems.
In my experience, speed doesn’t just come from working faster—it comes from working smarter with the right AI systems in place. That combination has freed up more of my time for high-value, creative work while ensuring clients get results sooner.
If you or your readers are looking to accelerate your consulting practice with AI, I’d be glad to share practical approaches and help you get up to speed quickly.
Very well said, Frank. Speed comes from, among other things, smart application of tools. The old definition of software still applies: “A system that allows us to make the same mistakes much faster.” Hence my note that to truly accelerate you must improve your quality.
Thanks for contributing your case study, Frank!
David,
Great stuff as always! I was going to write a longer comment but I couldn’t rationalize the time… 🙂
Funny, Doc. Same here! ????
If I had a dollar for every time a client thanked me for getting back to them so quickly, I could retire tomorrow. We tend to forget that before someone calls us for help, they’ve been discussing the issue for weeks or even months. Now they are anxious to get rolling and they don’t appreciate waiting for call backs.
Good point, Dan. Reaching out to a consultant is also a point in time when most executives are feeling anxiety–enough anxiety to have to call in outside help. Plus the uncertainty of whether whoever they called really will help. Rapid response shows you’re interested in reducing their anxiety.
I appreciate your bringing the Right-Side Up perspective to the fore, Dan!
Speed is the healing app!
3-57 Rule – People are only working on the product or service 3 minutes out of 60. The other 57 are for delay. Don’t try to make people faster. It’s a waste of time.
Eliminate the delays between steps.
15-2-20 Rule – a 15 minute reduction in delay will double productivity and increase profits by 20%.
3X2 Rule – Reducing delays will allow your business to grow 3X faster than your competition and double productivity.
Interesting and provocative rules, Jay. All the formulas point in the same direction: don’t delay!
I’m glad you chimed in with your take on speed, Jay.