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It’s great to be a consultant

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Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#91

Post by brtkdotse »

danjac wrote: post #47
rich_sasha wrote: post #4

6. The sense of relief when your invoice is paid is amazing. 7. Having to go into projects that really don't make sense but pay your bills teaches diplomacy and patience. 8. Having long-term financial committments on the one hand (mortgage, school and medical bills etc.) and short-term uncertain revenue is an interesting mental exercise to engage in. The last one is the killer for me I think, having dabbled in this a…

Social security systems in European countries tend to be based around people earning a regular salary losing their jobs, rather than consultants having occasional dry spells between projects. This is a problem with the gig economy in general - our social security nets aren't very well designed for it (perhaps an argument in favour of UBI, or at least some different thinking into how social security should work for th…

The answer to this is "charge more". You should be pulling in _at least_ 2 hours worth of payroll costs (note: not 2 hours of pay) for each worked hour. This give you a buffer for lulls.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#94

Post by AitchEmArsey »

mjburgess wrote: post #78
leeter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 100%, I've literally been hired onto a client to basically tell management something their internal team had been saying for ages. The challenge wasn't telling management that; but rather getting them to (politically very carefully) open their eyes to the fact they had the solution (and the people to implement) right in front of them the entire time. That was a very tricky situation as the management didn't trus…

Yeah, this is pretty universally the job of a management consultancy: interview the staff, and report what they're saying.

Interviewing staff ("stakeholders") at a customer is always fascinating. I've seen the full range from sincere gratitude at being listened to, through to open hostility and suspicion. The latter was much worse when I was younger and worried about impressions I was making on older-but-not-very-senior people. At some point you just stop giving a shit and let them hate you if they feel threatened.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#95

Post by willcipriano »

isoprophlex wrote: post #86
_57jb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have an approach that is unlikable. I say this because I am exactly that. I often cut straight to the point and can't really read the room. I think I'm helping and being brutally honest when in reality it comes off condescending or arrogant. I heard a quote that I really like, honesty without kindness is cruelty. That helped me rethink my approach towards how I communicate.

> I think I'm helping and being brutally honest when in reality it comes off condescending or arrogant. > honesty without kindness is cruelty That is so very spot on. I strongly identify with this, great quote.

The alternative is the Willy Wonka mindset. You tell them the right thing to do and half heartedly say "No... stop... don't"[0] as they go with the plan that is presented in a manner more conducive to their ego and feelings.

If I wanted to go through the song and dance of buttering everyone up so they will do what I say, why bother coming up with a good idea as well? I'd just say the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, that might be why the ideas that get acted upon tend to be so bad. What's the point of the quality of the idea has no impact in it's odds for adoption?

[0]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uVdDXeYM4ss

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#96

Post by cableshaft »

dx034 wrote: post #20
misthop wrote: post #2

Number 1: You are outside the company hierarchy This talks about not getting stuck in the politics of the company and having the authority/right to instigate change. It can be equally validly read as: Number 1: If your company is hiring consultants that are outside the hierarchy you have a potentially toxic political business culture and should look for a new job

Number 1 annoyed me most when I was in consulting and was one of the main reasons I quit. You can always give recommendations but have no leverage whatsoever if all advise is ignored and the work you did for months just lands in some archive. And even if that's clear from the start (and the work is just to tick some boxes), you might not be able to afford to lose that client by refusing the work. Working for months k…

Basically the same thing has happened to me at two different corporations as an employee, I worked on big projects for months that never saw the light of day, although I didn't know that would be the case ahead of time.

In one case the lead developer quit and the manager suddenly decided to scrap the project and hire a consultant firm to do the rest. In another I worked for six months on a project that would be 'the future of the department' they were going to sell to major companies, got it to a UAT state, showed it to the client, and the client dragged their feet on signing contracts for it for months, then they decided they were going to replicate it in-house, an oh, could you share all your business logic with us so we don't have to recreate it from scratch (thankfully our company told them to get fucked on that request).

It did seem nuts we were doing work without a signed contract, but apparently that's just how the healthcare industry works, if you waited until the contracts were signed you'd miss the open enrollment window for some of these, the most important time of the year for these things to be working, so the corporation I worked for (a large corporation) decided they needed to get a several month head start without a signed contract, and were overconfident it would eventually be signed.

That same corporation also had a project for some grand overhaul of their systems (and intended to unify several departments that all had their own systems, since they were originally bought and merged companies). We were one of the departments that were supposed to merge with that new software, and I know it still wasn't ready six years later (might have been scrapped, but I'm not sure).

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#97

Post by evancoop »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #60
evancoop wrote: post #48

I might add two amendments here: The first is that "time and materials" is infinitely preferable to "fixed scope." In the former case, both client and consultant have an incentive to set priorities and make difficult, pragmatic choices. In the latter case, the potential for inadvertently over-promising is ever-present. Then comes either "fail and take the blame" or work through sunrise to deliver. The second is that…

Many good consultancies prefer fixed price for fixed scope because the margins are higher. You are of course owning the risk, but if you know how to write a contract and manage a customer, fixed price work is much more profitable and even easier to deliver.

Certainly, the upside is larger - cannot argue. The challenge, in my mind, with respect to software is the unforeseen, not-entirely-in-your-control challenge of integration, bug-fixing, etc. I'd much rather have delivered 95% of the scoped work, tell the client essentially, "we can do X, but it could require some non-trivial expenditure on your part or, since we've done a great job setting priorities to date, maybe that feature is not mission critical." Time and materials gives both parties some agency.

Of course, if your powers of predictions are infallible, then perhaps you're better off with fixed scope! (My powers of prediction are infallible too...until they aren't!)

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#98

Post by leeter »

AitchEmArsey wrote: post #94
mjburgess wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is pretty universally the job of a management consultancy: interview the staff, and report what they're saying.

Interviewing staff ("stakeholders") at a customer is always fascinating. I've seen the full range from sincere gratitude at being listened to, through to open hostility and suspicion. The latter was much worse when I was younger and worried about impressions I was making on older-but-not-very-senior people. At some point you just stop giving a shit and let them hate you if they feel threatened.

This too, we're a technical consultancy (DevOps) so we get the gamut of reactions from "You're on my turf" to "Finally someone that my boss will listen to". Getting the former early on severely hurts your chances of success sadly.

Edited for spelling

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#99

Post by mc32 »

mjburgess wrote: post #78
leeter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 100%, I've literally been hired onto a client to basically tell management something their internal team had been saying for ages. The challenge wasn't telling management that; but rather getting them to (politically very carefully) open their eyes to the fact they had the solution (and the people to implement) right in front of them the entire time. That was a very tricky situation as the management didn't trus…

Yeah, this is pretty universally the job of a management consultancy: interview the staff, and report what they're saying.

The interview has to be scoped right. Sometimes they get scoped too broadly and people will offer opinions about processes of which they don’t have a complete understanding and can lead them to saying things that are not germane and sidetrack other teams.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#100

Post by nickjj »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #83
nickjj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I value job security, and therefore a financially secure life, over any of the benefits this consultant has. As someone who has done contract work for most of my working life I think it's kind of the opposite. When doing contract work you have the option of having multiple part time jobs. Not everything is based on full time yearly commitments. You might choose to do 15 hours a week for 2 different gigs, or maybe 4…

You probably should have savings as well, if someone isn't good with their finances then it probably isn't an ideal career for them. Customers can smell the desperation for work a mile off.

> You probably should have savings as well

Absolutely. Personally I try to keep any savings and investments as a 1 way street. I treat it as an untouchable deposit-only fund unless something really bad happens or I make an explicit decision to do something big with it (like retire or temporarily go off the grid for a few years).

To me security is being able to live without taking out those funds during my working years but knowing they exist if I really need them.

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