Improvisational Comedy: turning audience suggestions into a product - quickly.
I'm used to showing up to an office, standing in front of a bunch of engineers, reading the room, and providing value. All very quickly.
The value to the client is solutions, the value to whom you're representing is trust.
I'm comfortable being thrown into the fire, and I'm good at it.
Honestly, sometimes we software consultants are put into situations where the expectations have been set a bit too high. We handle it. Integrity matters. Credibility matters.
One challenge I see often is that the consulting delivery entity is coordinating with the client, but with those doing the coordination being five levels removed from the deliverable. I try to mitigate that by talking directly to the audience when possible.
The first thing I do when "getting to the room" is get to know the audience. I then do everything I can to tailor to their needs.
Recently at a conference in Kansas City someone noticed that I went "off script." "Did you notice that I talked to everybody in the auditorium before my presentations?" I personally asked everybody in the room (40 or so people) what their experience was and what they wanted to see.
I joke that I like to make a scattergram of needs and find the centroid. "This way I can disappoint everyone equally." Note: self-deprecating humor is far more welcome than self-aggrandizing. Also note: it's also important to know how to weight the points in the scattergram - generally, on-site consulting skews towards keeping the gurus happy (they'll teach the newer designers later).