I was a technical project management consultant for a long time. The value that most orgs get from a consultant isn't really in the advice the consultant gives them, it's the political cover to make changes they knew they should make all along, but didn't have the social capital or the focus to make those changes until they had a person in a chair across from them.
Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
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Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#22The IFF referenced in the article seems like a great example of how good-intentioned changes to incentive structures can have very warped outcomes, potentially years later. These kinds of effects keep popping up for me, even in industry contexts (e.g. stack ranking). Are there accepted mechanisms for systematically identifying these knock-on effects, and if so, what are they and how can they be more broadly applied?…
That's already in practice - there are dozens of competing think tanks that churn out pretty deep critiques of legislation before it comes up for a vote. Whether for better or worse instead of the legislation being edited accordingly the criticisms are usually dismissed as "Republican/Democrat talking points".
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#23From the linked article[1]:
I find it absolutely INSANE that highly specialized organizations like the NSA rely on McKinsey to direct their future operations.
These people have intimate knowledge of their organization and culture, shaped and hardened by years of challenges and learned experiences. What can they possibly think bringing an outsider in to do a complete overhaul will solve!?
Why can they not apply their own experience to solve problems in their own organization!? The proliferation of consulting firms baffles me. It seems like you’re just paying people for critical thinking.
Unrelated: All of my classmates that went into consulting joke about how absurd the field feels to them.
[1]: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/02/spies-intelligence...
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#24I am guessing nothing will change unless there is significant outrage... I imagine McKinsey kicks back money into election campaigns as well.
It seems worth it to become a govt contractor though..
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#25I'm sorry but no case is made to support the idea that taxpayers are buying generic advice. Let's agree that the service buys a fresh college grad assigned full time. The grad might be a customer contact collecting and organizing customer issues before presenting them to internal subject matter experts, and then presenting those findings back to the client. I'd like to hear evidence to support how the service is fresh college grads simply using what they learnt in college and their chutzpah, which is what the article implies.
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#26The IFF referenced in the article seems like a great example of how good-intentioned changes to incentive structures can have very warped outcomes, potentially years later. These kinds of effects keep popping up for me, even in industry contexts (e.g. stack ranking). Are there accepted mechanisms for systematically identifying these knock-on effects, and if so, what are they and how can they be more broadly applied?…
In terms of lawmaking, the usual way to deal with this problem isn't with front-end analysis, but rather by adding a "sunset provision" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision). That's a clause in a bill that requires it to be re-authorized periodically in order to stay in effect. If a law with a sunset provision ends up causing unintended consequences, then lawmakers can let it die just by doing nothing. That's an easier lift than you get in a bill without a sunset provision, which can only be killed if you can convince a majority of lawmakers to actively kill it.
Sunset provisions aren't nearly as widely used as they probably should be.
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#27Title’s terrible, I read it as taxpayers pay $3M a year per U.S. college graduate. It’s not even the original title, “Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor.”
The actual article title is "Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor," don't know if it was edited or the poster just chose something different.
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#28Who's going to be the tax payer's hero in that government department? This squeaky wheel would effectively defund his colleague's cush jobs and likely his or her own. Not going to make a lot of friends but it will save the tax payer a fraction of a cent.
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#29Title’s terrible, I read it as taxpayers pay $3M a year per U.S. college graduate. It’s not even the original title, “Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor.”
I've noticed a lot of posts on HN recently get their titles changed after posting, and this one will as well because it is quite incorrect as you pointed out.
Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor
#30Matt Stoller wrote a really interesting book giving a history of monopoly power in America: https://www.amazon.com/Goliath-Monopolies-Secretly-Took-Worl... On my winter reading list :)
Thanks for the recommendation, I didn't read the article either.
Darn my pinning in google keep and reading the thread the next day has backfired on me! :)