Con-sulted!

Posted on May 17, 2006 by Dave J.

Dogbert: “I like to con people. And I like to insult people. If you combine con & insult, you get consult!”

I won’t go into the details (it wasn’t my project tho), but we’ve been con-sulted, perpetuating the belief that consultants are evil. Said hired gun committed the following crimes:

  • Significantly over budget
  • Did work out of the scope (the part that we can do ourselves)
  • Failed to learn our needs
  • Solutions provided weren’t usable as-is
  • Sat on information that would have ended the project early

Its cool to be the client calling the shots, but you seem to spend so much time teaching the consultant and they never really ‘get it’ because they don’t have to deal with the results. Sometimes its so much easier (and safer) to do it yourself. Plus your skill-set grows.

We’ll have to check if the next consultant we talk to is wagging his tail before agreeing to anything.

UPDATE: In response to comments, I wanted to say a little bit more. I think what I really blame the consultant for is not managing the project. They weren’t evil, just sloppy, bad listeners. And we were naive enough to think that they would be in control of the process. (And to John, it was an hourly deal with a SOW.)

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  • John McDougall

    Cute… Not much to write about I guess. Hmmmm. On behalf of the consultant…What were your expectations going into this? Was there a detailed, well defined task with measurable goals and benchmarks to track towards the desired outcome? Was the consultant’s fee performance based?On your behalf…What were your expectations going into this? Was there a detailed, well defined task with measurable goals and benchmarks to track towards the desired outcome? Was the consultant’s fee performance based?

  • John McDougall

    Cute… Not much to write about I guess. Hmmmm. On behalf of the consultant…What were your expectations going into this? Was there a detailed, well defined task with measurable goals and benchmarks to track towards the desired outcome? Was the consultant’s fee performance based?On your behalf…What were your expectations going into this? Was there a detailed, well defined task with measurable goals and benchmarks to track towards the desired outcome? Was the consultant’s fee performance based?

  • Anonymous

    Hi!I am an ex-Accenture consultant; live in Bs.As, Argentina.I know what you mean about consultants, wish you still believe in human nature and there are good guys too! *:)*To differentiate, we are starting our own B2B Marketing Consultant firm, and we would really like to know about the pitfalls.serious64@yahoo.com; hope to hear more from you soon!

  • Anonymous

    Hi!I am an ex-Accenture consultant; live in Bs.As, Argentina.I know what you mean about consultants, wish you still believe in human nature and there are good guys too! *:)*To differentiate, we are starting our own B2B Marketing Consultant firm, and we would really like to know about the pitfalls.serious64@yahoo.com; hope to hear more from you soon!

  • Boyink

    Sorry to hear about your experience Dave…Speaking as someone who sometimes plays a consultant, there are some jobs where it’s just darn hard to create “measureable goals” (often it seems like the time and cost of actually performing the measurement is higher than the project being discussed)…and I’ve never yet been involved (on either side of the consultant/client fence) with any fee structure that was “performance based”…and frankly I’d probably pass on a project where that was proposed as it sounds like a a great way to get into a post-project conflict over billing.Having said that…being reliable (doing what I said I would do on the budget and schedule I said I would do it for) is paramount in my work.Sounds like most of what you ran into are just (IMHO) root-level character issues, which can be difficult to solve with project-management approaches.

  • Boyink

    Sorry to hear about your experience Dave…Speaking as someone who sometimes plays a consultant, there are some jobs where it’s just darn hard to create “measureable goals” (often it seems like the time and cost of actually performing the measurement is higher than the project being discussed)…and I’ve never yet been involved (on either side of the consultant/client fence) with any fee structure that was “performance based”…and frankly I’d probably pass on a project where that was proposed as it sounds like a a great way to get into a post-project conflict over billing.Having said that…being reliable (doing what I said I would do on the budget and schedule I said I would do it for) is paramount in my work.Sounds like most of what you ran into are just (IMHO) root-level character issues, which can be difficult to solve with project-management approaches.

  • Vic

    Man… you absolutetly gotta love Dilbert. :-) I have to agree with a couple of the comments above… it can be hard to come into a brand new situation on every new job and have to come up to speed ASAP.Vic

  • Vic

    Man… you absolutetly gotta love Dilbert. :-) I have to agree with a couple of the comments above… it can be hard to come into a brand new situation on every new job and have to come up to speed ASAP.Vic

  • Anonymous

    I have been on both sides of the “Fence”. I have seen that most “Excutives” hire a consulting firm, and expect remarkable results. When in actuality, most Consultants are Experts in their field and know where to find the information they need to help the company. Their results usually sound like what some employees of the company have been telling the “Excutives” for years. Then they are either upset for spending the money on the Consultants or they are absolutely amaised that the Consultants discovered their problem. Most Consultants get their information from the employees of the company, by knowing what questions to ask. Ironic isn’t it!!!!

  • Anonymous

    I have been on both sides of the “Fence”. I have seen that most “Excutives” hire a consulting firm, and expect remarkable results. When in actuality, most Consultants are Experts in their field and know where to find the information they need to help the company. Their results usually sound like what some employees of the company have been telling the “Excutives” for years. Then they are either upset for spending the money on the Consultants or they are absolutely amaised that the Consultants discovered their problem. Most Consultants get their information from the employees of the company, by knowing what questions to ask. Ironic isn’t it!!!!