ou don't know an individual who can help get the work done, ask someone you know and trust if they know someone. Finding and hiring or en- gaging a consultant starts with the initial contact by whatever means, and from there on it's like hiring a new employee. If you are not sure how to define what you want, that's a perfectly good reason to hire a knowledgeable consultant. If you know what you want, and you just need someone who can take direction and get the work done, that's another perfectly good reason to hire a hard- working, knowledgeable consultant. Like any procurement, the ground rules are the same. Specify what you want in writing, hand the document to the potential consultant, and get them to confirm their understanding of what is written. Then agree on an hourly rate and an estimate of time and dollars for each of the tasks of your project. Consultants can be hired to perform single or multiple tasks. The key is to be specific about the task they are hired to perform. If you're uncertain about what you want done, 7 SPECIFYING EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES or how to go about it, competent consultants can help you define it and then you can hire the same consultant as a follow-up engage- ment or bid it out. Consultants don't like this sort of approach for obvious reasons, but from a purely hard-nosed business perspective, it's a matter of being satisfied that your organization's money is well spent. One of the most common uses of consultants is to prepare specifica- tions. This works well if your organization has formal procurement rules and policies. If not, then the next most common use of consult- ants is preparation of a RFP. The work of the consultant can end at this point in the overall process or extend to evaluation of responses to the RFP, contract negotiations, and supplier management. Expect components of your project to vary. Simple projects are more like tasks. As cost, scope, and complexity increase, multiple tasks turn into a project. Sometimes multiple projects are dealt with as a program. For