Earlier today I had an email exchange and follow up call with consulting colleagues. The essence of it goes like this:
We need a costed Internet strategy document
My first thought was a flashback to a project I undertook in the late 70s with Doolittle Plunder & Grabbit (aka Deloitte). We spent a year developing a costing system that was never implemented. About 9 months in, I asked the senior on the job: ‘What are we doing?’ Quick as a flash, the answer came back: ‘Billing £12K a month.’ This request could end up exactly the same.
My next thought was: ‘Are we billing this by weight because if we are then we’re going to be in for the long haul.’ And that’s what a lot of consultants like. I don’t and fortunately my consulting colleagues don’t either. Instead. we like to think that what we do is discover what the client is really after and then tell them what we believe they need to know. We iterate that process over a short time period (think washing on a short spin cycle) so that we can be reasonably sure there will be a result the client can action.
As an aside, Brian Sommer has written an excellent guide to selecting consultants. I’m thinking we should add this in as an addendum to our submission. It will add approximately 25% to the overall content. Another thing I’m thinking we should do is run a risk assessment profile for this project. Mike Krigsman knows a thing or two about this topic.
The alternative is the kind of thing you can find out about on GDiFC.
Technorati Tags: project failure, consulting
