CONSULTING
SKILLS & BEHAVIORS

At SYP, our teams are made up of an interdisciplinary cast of characters with a range of skill sets and behaviors. These are made up of the discipline skills we uniquely bring to our projects alongside the consulting skills and behaviors embodied by all of our consultants. This is a space to both guide our individual growth journeys and equip us to give more relevant and effective feedback to the people we work with every day.

TECH-SPECIFIC

UX-SPECIFIC

STUDIO DESIGN-SPECIFIC

SKILLS

TECH-SPECIFIC

Product Assessment

Assessing current technology trends, software and hardware. Advising teams on how to best leverage technology and integrate it into the work.

Digital Strategy

Taking ambiguous threads of concept and transforming them into digital form. Designing online touch-points. Through iterative process and rapid prototyping, bringing experience to life with a technological heartbeat.

Development

Bringing the hard-skills of production ready code to our tools and websites. Creating functional, usable digital manifestations for our clients and our work.

Media Production (advisory + small scope)

Creating and editing video and audio assets to be used in our work. Assisting team in vendor selection and support in managing the video/audio production process.

UX-SPECIFIC

User Research

Building and executing nimble plans that enable teams to quickly and effectively observe and glean insights about the humans at the core of a situation—whether they are customers, employees, users, or citizens.

Ethnography

Actively listening with both a beginner’s and expert’s mind—taking note of tone, body language, behavior, word choice, and what’s left unsaid. This nuanced understanding helps probe deeper and identify greater opportunities for impact.

Journey Mapping

Identifying motivators and key user touch-points to create meaningful online / offline experiences. This approach to experience design brings a human-centered lens to craft experiences for scale and impact.

Product Strategy

Guiding clients and teams to think through the big picture visioning of a product—clarifying its audiences, intended outcomes, and goals. By bringing forth the why behind building or iterating upon a product, it allows for more intentional design and strategy.

STUDIO DESIGN-SPECIFIC

Production

Planning and implementing the process and steps required to produce deliverables of all types, including print, projection, presentations, room set-up, etc. Assisting in design quality control.

Event Design

Collaborating with SYP team and vendors to take an idea or prototype to scale and expert implementation. Managing relationships and communication with a wide variety of fabricators and vendors.

Fabrication

Seeing and creating objects in three dimensional form to bring a vision to life. Bringing models to life with a focus on material knowledge, texture mapping, lighting conditions and an artistic eye.

Specialized Vendor Management

Seeking out trusted partnerships with exceptional vendors and specialists. Helping define the need and specification of the work with the project team and guide and manage the relationship in partnership with the PM.

STRATEGIST

SENIOR STRATEGIST

STRATEGY DIRECTOR

SKILLS

Research

The systematic collection of information—both directly and laterally relevant—and the business acumen to use that knowledge base to establish facts, test hypotheses, and model scenarios.

STRATEGIST

Gather and analyze relevant business and cultural intelligence, identifying gaps and opportunities throughout the project.

Organize and present research clearly, demonstrating proficiency in using various methods and discerning high-quality information.

SENIOR STRATEGIST

Lead and design research across a variety of methods, clarifying business challenges, drafting focused briefs, and selecting key questions.

Prioritize and communicate the most critical findings and hypotheses, guiding project decisions and helping the team and client focus on what matters most.

STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Define the research strategy, aligning stakeholders on the intelligence, rigor, and resources needed for brief development and discovery.

Oversee and adapt the research process, steering it as findings evolve, clarifying critical information and implications, and ensuring alignment with client objectives.

Synthesis

The ability to translate large, disparate bodies of information into clear themes and patterns, while uncovering gaps and relationships.

STRATEGIST

Identify clear patterns from diverse information sources, recognizing commonalities and emerging trends.

Develop systems that enable the team to engage with, better understand, and access key information efficiently.

SENIOR STRATEGIST

Distill themes that address core challenges, refining and evolving them based on new information and team feedback.

Discern underlying meaning and connections, identifying relationships and patterns that go beyond surface-level observations.


STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Integrate information from conversations across the project in real time, filtering themes and applying them in different contexts.

Anticipate gaps in understanding, identifying strategies to address emerging needs and refine the project direction.


Insights

Creating new levels of understanding by uncovering deep-seated, essential truths not readily apparent in the source material and constructing them from persuasive and sound logic.

STRATEGIST

Pose thoughtful questions and draw connections that uncover deeper dimensions of a problem and surface opportunities, tensions, and root causes.

Articulate well-structured and persuasive points of view that reveal new, valuable perspectives and resonate with project stakeholders.


SENIOR STRATEGIST

Communicate complex findings powerfully, using compelling formats like statements, frameworks, or visuals to drive understanding.

Expand the team’s thinking by making connections across the project and surfacing tensions, opportunities, and implications.


STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Convey the business or individual relevance of findings in impactful, memorable ways tailored to the moment and client needs.

Propel the team to surface critical insights across individual, team, company, and industry levels, ensuring depth and relevance.


Written expression

Using clear, compelling, and succinct language to craft stories that convey information, evoke emotion, and build credibility and belief with the audience.

STRATEGIST

Craft clear, compelling, and concise prose across various modes, ensuring content delivers on strategic intent and evokes emotional impact.

Lead revisions by effectively incorporating feedback, both in real-time conversations and through asynchronous reviews.


SENIOR STRATEGIST

Create content that enhances understanding and belief, using varied formats, tones, and expressions to engage both the team and client.

Elevate the team’s written content, introducing new ideas beyond feedback and consistently delivering client-ready work.


STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Set and uphold the standard for written expression, ensuring it sparks insights, evokes emotion, and resonates with the target audience across all formats.

Guide and enable the team to produce high-quality content and manage workflows to meet strategic and creative ambitions.

Framing

Clarifying intention, prioritizing, and/or identifying constraints and opportunities to create structure, direction, and focus.

STRATEGIST

Articulate complex thinking or problems in a way others can easily engage with. 

SENIOR STRATEGIST

Solve for multiple dependencies on an individual track verbally, visually and with speed.

STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Create clarity amidst ambiguity to enable progress and build belief internally and with clients.

Facilitation

Guiding a group through a conversation by creating space for individual and collective sensemaking that fosters healthy discussion, debate, decision-making, and alignment.


STRATEGIST

Prepare participants and guide conversations toward defined outcomes.

SENIOR STRATEGIST

Lead conversations across a range of different modes and draw out diverse perspectives.


STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Navigate complex environments and adjust in real-time in service of the most critical outcome.

Ideation

Designing or using a starting point (creative brief, “how might we” provocation, etc.) to generate a range of possibilities or paths forward relevant to a larger intention.


STRATEGIST

Generate relevant and creative ideas and possibilities for a deliverable or track.

SENIOR STRATEGIST

Create conditions for creativity and filter ideas based on sound reasoning.

STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Elevate the ambition and impact of ideas, progressing all levels of a project

Manifestation

Moving from thinking to making early and iteratively to translate ideas into tangible executions, through sketches, storyboards, diagrams, workflows, etc.


STRATEGIST

Initiate progress amidst ambiguity and accurately incorporate feedback.


SENIOR STRATEGIST

Drive work forward by testing and iterating based on learning and evolved thinking.

STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Bring projects to the finish line by problem solving the smallest details and serving as final quality control.

Relationship building

Understanding people and creating the space for honest, open, and often vulnerable dialog to proactively build the mutual trust necessary for courageous and creative work.

STRATEGIST

Identify ways to help, inspire, support, or provide value to people in the work.

SENIOR STRATEGIST

Create the conditions for team members and clients to show up authentically and anticipate their needs.

STRATEGY DIRECTOR

Proactively build senior level relationships and together address critical challenges with kindness, grace, and bravery.

BEHAVIORS

STRATEGIST

You bring your discipline and consulting expertise into a project, and own the progression of specific deliverables or workplans.

You are becoming effective at our ways of working and taking on a range of responsibilities in the pursuit of the team’s collective success.


You propel deliverables from beginning to end, proactively identifying milestones and communicating updates.

You bring people into the work at the right moments and can quickly and accurately integrate feedback, builds, and pivots.

You successfully collaborate and co-create with members of all disciplines, creating space for their perspectives and amplifying your collective abilities.

You frequently share points-of-view on the direction of deliverables, experiences, and projects at large—volleying ideas back and forth and building on the ideas of others.

You orient and take people through content effectively and clearly to spark conversation with clients and internal stakeholders.

You continuously participate in feedback, seeking input that will fuel your growth and generously providing feedback to others.

You try new and sometimes unfamiliar approaches and techniques—releasing the pressure on yourself to be right.

You take a learning orientation to the work and demonstrate adaptability, quickly testing ideas and pivoting in real-time.

You read between the lines and spot key themes and takeaways from conversations.

SENIOR STRATEGIST

You are wielding your consulting and discipline skills with consistency, strength, and speed across a variety of project types.

You are building your ability to collaboratively lead tracks of work and guide people at different levels and disciplines.


You can drive work forward by clearly identifying what you’re solving for and crafting a vision for where it needs to go.

You’re thinking about the system—of the team, of the client’s organization, of the client team, of our past work—and how it impacts or would be impacted by individual deliverables.

You bring past work experience/references to accelerate progress, frequently sharing inspiration with the team.

You demonstrate versatility by effectively adapting to and leading through an increased complexity of projects (e.g., types of work, team structures, clients) and internal relationships (e.g., Partners, Principals, peers, etc).

You take initiative and accountability to create conditions for the team’s success while simultaneously wielding your consulting and discipline skills.

You create clarity for the team on what’s the work is driving towards and how we’ll get there.

You build trust with your team and have confidence to progress the work while working alongside clients individually or in a group setting.

You push beyond the apparent solution, or what’s simply “good enough”, to identify the right opportunities to make the work more impactful.

You bring a clarity of thought that focuses work on the most critical elements, prioritizing what will maximize effectiveness and minimize confusion.

STRATEGY DIRECTOR

You are accountable for your discipline’s output on a project and creating the conditions for your team’s collective success alongside other project leaders.

You are finding the right balance between leading and the making, as you stretch into taking more responsibility with the client team.


You shape a compelling vision for the work and can build belief in this future with your team and client in a manner that ignites their courage, curiosity, and capability.

You see both the big picture of our work and the interdependencies between all the individual parts of the system, solving for the most critical root causes or leverage points.

You partner with other project leaders to build high-performing teams that effectively balance sustainability, creativity, and rigor—bringing out the best of all project stakeholders (clients, project leaders, team members, SMEs, external partners, etc).

You play an equal role in the framing of the work as the making of the work, continuing to evolve your own discipline skills and uplifting the work of all disciplines.

You take accountability for the final quality control on your projects or tracks of work.

You provide in-the-moment feedback to team members, leading with questions instead of answers.

You are a thought-partner to senior level clients, sharing points-of-view and using your expertise and experience to advise them.

You deliver persuasive logic to a client team—explaining and defending where appropriate—responding to questions, and incorporating feedback in the moment while maintaining the integrity of the argument.

You coach and elevate the work of junior consultants on your project, within and outside your discipline.

You are aware of your emotions and can modulate your energy in different situations for the benefit of the team.

DESIGNER

SENIOR DESIGNER

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

SKILLS

Creative Inspiration

Drawing on a range of sources in order to engage a team, define a vision, and push the work forward.

DESIGNER

Build an ever growing repertoire of inspiring references that provide creative starting points for the work. Dedicate a space/virtual space where teams can draw inspiration from.

SENIOR DESIGNER

Pilot new ideas and methods that engage the project team and client, raise aspiration, shape vision, spark excitement, and inspire confidence to push the work forward.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Cultivate a culture of creative inspiration with your project team and design team. Elevate the work by inspiring and empowering the team and client to build courage and unlock their creative audacity in powerful new ways.

Experience

Designing intentional moments, interactions, and details that engineer emotional and intellectual breakthroughs for the participant.


DESIGNER

Establish the objectives, define the essential frame(s), and design the experience into clear steps alongside your team/duo. Design with empathy for the user/attendees by familiarizing yourself with them and their industry.

SENIOR DESIGNER

Drive intentional moments and interactions toward clear outcomes. Design with the audience’s perspective in mind and and use power of storytelling to engineer epiphanies.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Guide the team in enhancing the human-centered impact of the experience that drives toward emotional and intellectual breakthroughs. Lead by example by facilitating powerful experiences that align to the project objectives.

Visual Expression

Ability to set tone, bring clarity, convey meaning, and spark emotion through visuals with a strong point of view and a high level of polish and craft.

DESIGNER

Execute creative explorations that generate a variety of visual directions. Design complex ideas into something simple to understand.

SENIOR DESIGNER

Bring powerful stories to life that spark emotion and build belief. Elevate the level of design craft on your team, setting a higher ambition for execution. 

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Set and uphold an industry-leading standard of visual design makes clients and organizations see themselves better than they ever have before. Champion the art of critiquing and directing work in order for others to achieve that.

Prototyping

Bringing concepts to life physically or digitally across a range of fidelity—from initial draft to working model.

DESIGNER

Iterate and learn by prototyping early and often, building in feedback loops to be certain that your work is having its intended effect. Master the latest tools and techniques that are essential to our work.

SENIOR DESIGNER

Set an example that encourages teams to go from talking to making and provide tangible materials for others to see how the work will come to life. Experiment with new platforms that take our work to brave new areas of creativity.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Institute a culture of relentless innovation with your teams that experiment with new technologies and methods in order to set the tone for groundbreaking work. Partner with experts to find bold new ways of executing creatively audacious ideas.

Framing

Clarifying intention, prioritizing, and/or identifying constraints and opportunities to create structure, direction, and focus.

DESIGNER

Articulate complex thinking or problems in a way others can easily engage with. 

SENIOR DESIGNER

Solve for multiple dependencies on an individual track verbally, visually and with speed.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Create clarity amidst ambiguity to enable progress and build belief internally and with clients.

Facilitation

Guiding a group through a conversation by creating space for individual and collective sensemaking that fosters healthy discussion, debate, decision-making, and alignment.


DESIGNER

Prepare participants and guide conversations toward defined outcomes.

SENIOR DESIGNER

Lead conversations across a range of different modes and draw out diverse perspectives.


CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Navigate complex environments and adjust in real-time in service of the most critical outcome.

Ideation

Designing or using a starting point (creative brief, “how might we” provocation, etc.) to generate a range of possibilities or paths forward relevant to a larger intention.


DESIGNER

Generate relevant and creative ideas and possibilities for a deliverable or track.

SENIOR DESIGNER

Create conditions for creativity and filter ideas based on sound reasoning.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Elevate the ambition and impact of ideas, progressing all levels of a project

Manifestation

Moving from thinking to making early and iteratively to translate ideas into tangible executions, through sketches, storyboards, diagrams, workflows, etc.


DESIGNER

Initiate progress amidst ambiguity and accurately incorporate feedback.


SENIOR DESIGNER

Drive work forward by testing and iterating based on learning and evolved thinking.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Bring projects to the finish line by problem solving the smallest details and serving as final quality control.

Relationship building

Understanding people and creating the space for honest, open, and often vulnerable dialog to proactively build the mutual trust necessary for courageous and creative work.

DESIGNER

Identify ways to help, inspire, support, or provide value to people in the work.

SENIOR DESIGNER

Create the conditions for team members and clients to show up authentically and anticipate their needs.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Proactively build senior level relationships and together address critical challenges with kindness, grace, and bravery.

BEHAVIORS

DESIGNER

You bring your discipline and consulting expertise into a project, and own the progression of specific deliverables or workplans. You are becoming effective at our ways of working and taking on a range of responsibilities in the pursuit of the team’s collective success.


You propel deliverables from beginning to end, proactively identifying milestones and communicating updates.

You bring people into the work at the right moments and can quickly and accurately integrate feedback, builds, and pivots.

You successfully collaborate and co-create with members of all disciplines, creating space for their perspectives and amplifying your collective abilities.

You frequently share points-of-view on the direction of deliverables, experiences, and projects at large—volleying ideas back and forth and building on the ideas of others.

You orient and take people through content effectively and clearly to spark conversation with clients and internal stakeholders.

You continuously participate in feedback, seeking input that will fuel your growth and generously providing feedback to others.

You try new and sometimes unfamiliar approaches and techniques—releasing the pressure on yourself to be right.

You take a learning orientation to the work and demonstrate adaptability, quickly testing ideas and pivoting in real-time.

You read between the lines and spot key themes and takeaways from conversations.

SENIOR DESIGNER

You are wielding your consulting and discipline skills with consistency, strength, and speed across a variety of project types. You are building your ability to collaboratively lead tracks of work and guide people at different levels and disciplines.


You can drive work forward by clearly identifying what you’re solving for and crafting a vision for where it needs to go.

You’re thinking about the system—of the team, of the client’s organization, of the client team, of our past work—and how it impacts or would be impacted by individual deliverables.

You bring past work experience/references to accelerate progress, frequently sharing inspiration with the team.

You demonstrate versatility by effectively adapting to and leading through an increased complexity of projects (e.g., types of work, team structures, clients) and internal relationships (e.g., Partners, Principals, peers, etc).

You take initiative and accountability to create conditions for the team’s success while simultaneously wielding your consulting and discipline skills.

You create clarity for the team on what’s the work is driving towards and how we’ll get there.

You build trust with your team and have confidence to progress the work while working alongside clients individually or in a group setting.

You push beyond the apparent solution, or what’s simply “good enough”, to identify the right opportunities to make the work more impactful.

You bring a clarity of thought that focuses work on the most critical elements, prioritizing what will maximize effectiveness and minimize confusion.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

You are accountable for your discipline’s output on a project and creating the conditions for your team’s collective success alongside other project leaders. You are finding the right balance between leading and the making, as you stretch into taking more responsibility with the client team.


You shape a compelling vision for the work and can build belief in this future with your team and client in a manner that ignites their courage, curiosity, and capability.

You see both the big picture of our work and the interdependencies between all the individual parts of the system, solving for the most critical root causes or leverage points.

You partner with other project leaders to build high-performing teams that effectively balance sustainability, creativity, and rigor—bringing out the best of all project stakeholders (clients, project leaders, team members, SMEs, external partners, etc).

You play an equal role in the framing of the work as the making of the work, continuing to evolve your own discipline skills and uplifting the work of all disciplines.

You take accountability for the final quality control on your projects or tracks of work.

You provide in-the-moment feedback to team members, leading with questions instead of answers.

You are a thought-partner to senior level clients, sharing points-of-view and using your expertise and experience to advise them.

You deliver persuasive logic to a client team—explaining and defending where appropriate—responding to questions, and incorporating feedback in the moment while maintaining the integrity of the argument.

You coach and elevate the work of junior consultants on your project, within and outside your discipline.

You are aware of your emotions and can modulate your energy in different situations for the benefit of the team.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

PROGRAM MANAGER

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

SKILLS

Planning and Workflow

Designing the flow of work to drive outcomes. This includes strategic planning as well as designing processes and tools–and activating the behaviors to make them stick.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Plans for a discrete deliverable within a client engagement.

Supports the master plan, understands what needs to get done, and anticipates impact of deviations from the plan.

Identify opportunities to enhance flow.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Fully owns project workplan.

Prioritizes and segments work, adapting the plan as work evolves.

Communicates changes and implications to the client and team.

Manages workflow with daily, weekly, and longer-term lenses.

Discerns when to push for productivity, creativity, testing, etc.; anticipating potential roadblocks before they inhibit flow.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Oversees workflow across multiple tracks of work— prioritizing, anticipating gaps, and identifying dependencies.

Builds on long-term horizon planning and ability to plan for multiple scenarios and the hypothetical.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Architects the system that connects each part of a complex program together.

Leads teams through ambiguity.

Apply SYP’s unique PM approach to clients’ business, playing a key role in structuring their teams and workflow.

Delivery

Translating ambition to execution as executive producer of work product. This includes managing experiences and event logistics, asset development, creative problem solving, and coordinating and contracting between various partners and stakeholders.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Proactively assists PD in coordinating logistics and managing quality control.

Manages development and process for select deliverables created and produced internally.

Identify gaps and challenges and proactively seeks solutions.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Produces in-person and hybrid meetings, ensuring execution is aligned with overall strategic intent.

Have a working understanding of asset development (timeline, process, partnerships, etc.) across print, digital, video, and experience.

Generate multiple ideas to solve a challenge.

Quickly pivot, making sense of the impact of change, and pointing the team in the right direction.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Produce large-scale experiences, concurrently managing a variety of assets diverse in complexity and scale.

Skillfully help a team to develop ideas and strategies, as well as experiences.

Navigate ambiguity nimbly, calmly, and confidently.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Show up an an executive producer directing and contracting partners/ producers on large-scale internal or external experiences at the highest fidelity.

Hold subject matter expertise on production of various form factors.

Leverages creativity and innovative thinking to bring forth novel solutions on pioneering work.

Team Health

Developing and fostering healthy and high performing teams by building teams fit for purpose, creating conditions to activate teams, attending to team dynamics, and keeping pulse on and promoting sustainability.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Assist PD in communicating resource needs as they arise.

Builds strong rapport with each team member.

Create a sense of calm with a can-do attitude.

Identify issues that arise within team, escalating where appropriate.

Tracks milestones, deliverables, and team PTO, sparking conversation around sustainability with team.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Bring operational cadence to the work, setting upfront agreements.

Facilitates difficult conversations, reducing conflict before it escalates. Partners with CLG on Consulting Rituals, facilitating kick-offs, weekly retros, etc.

Anticipate resource needs and surplus in advance to minimize impact on team and firm. Create strong duos with each team member and encourages team behaviors that foster deep collaboration and partnership.

Show up fully in the work and is in lock step with the team, knowing which levers to pull when to maximize impact. Consistently account for spikes of intensity in the work, and plan for recharge time with team lead within the project.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Adapt to different leadership styles in building effective, productive relationships.

Facilitate a culture of feedback on the team.

Implements best practices around ways of working effectively at project kickoff and re-caliberates as needed throughout the project.

Wield presence and diplomacy to influence larger teams. Consistently bring best practices and learnings from other SYP or external teams and bodies of work to initiate or course correct team flow in challenging conditions.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Lead scenario planning and decision making across a multi-engagement program to maximize impact and efficiency.

Activate flow and partnership in the most complicated conditions (i.e., freelancers, broken duos, external partnerships, multi-regional teams, etc.).

Serve as a mediator to teams stuck in conflict.

Bring more predictability to work, despite unknows.

Help individuals to work more effectively by training collaborators in time management and planning.

Financial Health

Managing project financial health by scoping and negotiating work, analyzing data and assessing risk, and management of budgeting and billing.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Assist with project set up (pricing sheet, proposal, MSA, SOW).

Understands how to use financial tools (pricing tool, 10K, P&L reports, etc).

Assist PD with budget tracking and expenses.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Vet proposals, weighing in on project pricing.

Drafts SOWs and manage MSA process.

Track and evaluate profitability (fees and expenses) and team utilization, communicating discrepancies to appropriate parties (teaming, finance, operations).

Ensure invoices are accurate and sent to client, received, and paid on time.

Implement expense budget trackers and proactively communicate travel and expense policies to team, as well as any non-billable expenses to finance.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Lead financial reporting.

Initiate and drive proposal development process especially for next phase work—including shaping the work—plan and mapping out multiple pricing and teaming scenarios.

Leverage data to anticipate changes and recommend adjustments, including weighing impact of changes in scope and partnering with CLG leaders on best path forward.

Create and manage complex billing systems.

Negotiate additional budget with client as needed, in partnership with CLG.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Create proposals and negotiates fees with client directly, in partnership with CLG members.

Weigh impact of changes in scope and partner with client directly on best path forward.

Manage budgeting and billing across multi-engagement programs.

Framing

Clarifying intention, prioritizing, and/or identifying constraints and opportunities to create structure, direction, and focus.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Articulate complex thinking or problems in a way others can easily engage with. 

PROGRAM MANAGER

Articulate complex thinking or problems in a way others can easily engage with. 

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Solve for multiple dependencies on an individual track verbally, visually and with speed.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Create clarity amidst ambiguity to enable progress and build belief internally and with clients.

Facilitation

Guiding a group through a conversation by creating space for individual and collective sensemaking that fosters healthy discussion, debate, decision-making, and alignment.


PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Prepare participants and guide conversations toward defined outcomes.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Prepare participants and guide conversations toward defined outcomes.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Lead conversations across a range of different modes and draw out diverse perspectives.


PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Navigate complex environments and adjust in real-time in service of the most critical outcome.

Ideation

Designing or using a starting point (creative brief, “how might we” provocation, etc.) to generate a range of possibilities or paths forward relevant to a larger intention.


PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Generate relevant and creative ideas and possibilities for a deliverable or track.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Generate relevant and creative ideas and possibilities for a deliverable or track.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Create conditions for creativity and filter ideas based on sound reasoning.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Elevate the ambition and impact of ideas, progressing all levels of a project

Manifestation

Moving from thinking to making early and iteratively to translate ideas into tangible executions, through sketches, storyboards, diagrams, workflows, etc.


PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Initiate progress amidst ambiguity and accurately incorporate feedback.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Initiate progress amidst ambiguity and accurately incorporate feedback.


SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Drive work forward by testing and iterating based on learning and evolved thinking.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Bring projects to the finish line by problem solving the smallest details and serving as final quality control.

Relationship building

Understanding people and creating the space for honest, open, and often vulnerable dialog to proactively build the mutual trust necessary for courageous and creative work.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Identify ways to help, inspire, support, or provide value to people in the work.

PROGRAM MANAGER

Identify ways to help, inspire, support, or provide value to people in the work.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

Create the conditions for team members and clients to show up authentically and anticipate their needs.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Proactively build senior level relationships and together address critical challenges with kindness, grace, and bravery.

BEHAVIORS

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

You are partnering with a tenured member of your discipline and being introduced to the skills, tools, and mindsets helpful for growth within the discipline.

You are gaining exposure to our consulting work and contributing to projects as a supporting team member while building relationships across the firm.

You identify opportunities to support your project team across a variety of moments and tackle whatever needs to get done.

You seek out what you need to progress your work and deepen skills that will make you successful at SYP.

You shift focus between the big picture or system and the details.

You embrace opportunities to learn from leaders in your discipline.

You see gaps/challenges and are orientated towards finding solutions alongside your team.

You invest yourself in the collective success of the group and are willing to collaborate with all team members.

You build your understanding and use of enterprise tools and platforms.

You demonstrate awareness of interpersonal dynamics and respond to difficult situations with respect and proactivity.

You show up alert and engaged, paying attention to all details, and asking clarifying questions to ensure understanding of the work, client, culture, and firm.

You are respectful of SYP’s and our clients’ resources.

PROGRAM MANAGER

You bring your discipline and consulting expertise into a project, and own the progression of specific deliverables or workplans.

You are becoming effective at our ways of working and taking on a range of responsibilities in the pursuit of the team’s collective success.



You propel deliverables from beginning to end, proactively identifying milestones and communicating updates.

You bring people into the work at the right moments and can quickly and accurately integrate feedback, builds, and pivots.

You successfully collaborate and co-create with members of all disciplines, creating space for their perspectives and amplifying your collective abilities.

You frequently share points-of-view on the direction of deliverables, experiences, and projects at large—volleying ideas back and forth and building on the ideas of others.

You orient and take people through content effectively and clearly to spark conversation with clients and internal stakeholders.

You continuously participate in feedback, seeking input that will fuel your growth and generously providing feedback to others.

You try new and sometimes unfamiliar approaches and techniques—releasing the pressure on yourself to be right.

You take a learning orientation to the work and demonstrate adaptability, quickly testing ideas and pivoting in real-time.

You read between the lines and spot key themes and takeaways from conversations.

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

You are wielding your consulting and discipline skills with consistency, strength, and speed across a variety of project types.

You are building your ability to collaboratively lead tracks of work and guide people at different levels and disciplines.



You can drive work forward by clearly identifying what you’re solving for and crafting a vision for where it needs to go.

You’re thinking about the system—of the team, of the client’s organization, of the client team, of our past work—and how it impacts or would be impacted by individual deliverables.

You bring past work experience/references to accelerate progress, frequently sharing inspiration with the team.

You demonstrate versatility by effectively adapting to and leading through an increased complexity of projects (e.g., types of work, team structures, clients) and internal relationships (e.g., Partners, Principals, peers, etc).

You take initiative and accountability to create conditions for the team’s success while simultaneously wielding your consulting and discipline skills.

You create clarity for the team on what’s the work is driving towards and how we’ll get there.

You build trust with your team and have confidence to progress the work while working alongside clients individually or in a group setting.

You push beyond the apparent solution, or what’s simply “good enough”, to identify the right opportunities to make the work more impactful.

You bring a clarity of thought that focuses work on the most critical elements, prioritizing what will maximize effectiveness and minimize confusion.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

You are accountable for your discipline’s output on a project and creating the conditions for your team’s collective success alongside other project leaders.

You are finding the right balance between leading and the making, as you stretch into taking more responsibility with the client team.



You shape a compelling vision for the work and can build belief in this future with your team and client in a manner that ignites their courage, curiosity, and capability.

You see both the big picture of our work and the interdependencies between all the individual parts of the system, solving for the most critical root causes or leverage points.

You partner with other project leaders to build high-performing teams that effectively balance sustainability, creativity, and rigor—bringing out the best of all project stakeholders (clients, project leaders, team members, SMEs, external partners, etc).

You play an equal role in the framing of the work as the making of the work, continuing to evolve your own discipline skills and uplifting the work of all disciplines.

You take accountability for the final quality control on your projects or tracks of work.

You provide in-the-moment feedback to team members, leading with questions instead of answers.

You are a thought-partner to senior level clients, sharing points-of-view and using your expertise and experience to advise them.

You deliver persuasive logic to a client team—explaining and defending where appropriate—responding to questions, and incorporating feedback in the moment while maintaining the integrity of the argument.

You coach and elevate the work of junior consultants on your project, within and outside your discipline.

You are aware of your emotions and can modulate your energy in different situations for the benefit of the team.