Re: Why people dislike consultants

Great! Stirred up some discussion!
Now's a good time to throw some more information in. PERSONALLY SPEAKING, I'm neither disgruntled, nor a newbie in the market. Quite the reverse on both counts, in fact. Also, my intent here is not to slam consultants, but rather to try and get a valuable discussion up about this subject. The points I marked up in the original posting did not (necessarily) constitute my own opinions, but rather the noise I hear when I put my ear to the ground. The naivety in the posting is also deliberate - it's great to get all the different perspectives filling in the blanks. So, if I can paraphrase the responses so far (which have ALL been from consultants?):
1. Consultants solve problems that the employer either has no bandwidth or skillsets in house to do so.
2. There are 'bad consultants' and 'good consultants' 3. The purchaser of consulting services IS 'the boss'.

How would things change if, say, a consultant could afford to go in at 40 USD per hour, with no expenses?
Would the boss still be the decision maker? If the consultants were always of a uniform quality (ie no bad consultant), what difference would this make? If there were sufficient consultants to be 'always available', how much difference would this make?
How much time does a consultant take to get acclimatized on a new site?

James

In article <38305CE5.F52C8778_at_cais.com>,   randy_at_euclidsys.com wrote:
> James,
>
> you sound like a disgruntled guy. too bad.
>
> consultants serve a very important purpose (maybe several) and you
seem
> to miss all of them in your post. btw, I am fully employed but do
> occaisionally do consulting on the side...
>
> I find people DO like consultants. at least they like ME :)
>
> why? because I solve their problems. simple.
>
> Is it worth it to them? yes.
>
> try to imagine that you are the boss. (I am 'the boss' btw...). why
> would you want to hire a consultant? in short: because my existing
staff
> does not have the skills and/or time to complete the project within
the
> existing time or monetary constraints.
>
> sorry, but if i had an employee like you who insisted that no
consultant
> come in and 'ruin' your efforts, and all you needed was a little more
> surfing time to find the right liftable code, then i would fire you.
in
> the long run, it would be far cheaper to replace you than to be
hindered
> by your 'not developed here' attitude.
>
> randy
>
> morlej_at_my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > Dear All,
> >
> > It seems to me, from my experience in the industry, that people do
not
> > like computer consultants very much. As my experience mostly falls
in
> > the Oracle domain, I thought this would be a good place to ponder
this
> > issue.
> >
> > I thought I would scribe some of my thoughts to provoke the
discussion.
> > Some may be a little contentious, to shake the bag a bit, so to
speak:
> >
> > Q1. Who commissions a consultant?
> > A1. Your boss - somebody with enough approval authority to pay for
the
> > service. This is the first bone of contention - is it true that
when a
> > consultant appears, he/she is not entirely expected/wanted by the
> > people doing the work?
> > Nobody can dispute that you really need help once in a while, for
any
> > number of reasons. How CHEAP would consulting help need to be in
order
> > to allow the purchasing decision to fall back into the hands of the
> > guy/gal with hands on keyboards? Would this kind of model make the
help
> > more welcome?
> >
> > Q2. Why do consultants get commissioned in the first place?
> > A2. Bandwidth. Surely most of the value that a consultant brings is
> > already available in an increasing number of online resources? Is a
> > consultant not a redundant figure? What possible extra value can a
> > consultant bring? Is it purely the case that there is not enough
time
> > to surf for the answers?
> >
> > Q3. Are consultants good enough to rehire?
> > A3. Mostly not. This results in a large proportion of the chargeable
> > hours being spent by the consultant finding his/her feet, only to
never
> > return. Net result to the permanent employee: lots of wasted time,
and
> > only a small gain made.
> >
> > Q4. What do consultants NOT offer as a service?
> > A4. What people actually need. Things like a nicely organized
approach
> > to performance analysis, complete tools for space management, and so
> > on. Consultants enjoy being enigmas, and cherry picking the nice
work,
> > like narrow-band performance investigations, and the best bits of
> > architecture work.
> >
> > Am I wrong, or are these common feelings? If I were a consultant, I
> > would want to know what I could do to be a shining light - perhaps
> > asking the following questions in addition to those above:
> >
> > What are your most common performance problems?
> > What duties takes the most time in your job?
> > What duties do you dislike the most?
> > What can I do to help?
> >
> > Just my two pennies!
> >
> > James
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > Before you buy.
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy. Received on Tue Nov 16 1999 - 06:31:06 CST