Are consultants a waste of money?

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Spoken like a true consultant

The problem is that once the conultant has done his work, who is going to do the coding and make sure that what the consultant did is feasible. I have been in the position in the past where the consultant did his job, handed it in and left. I was given the result to implement and found that the consultant designed something that was totally unworkable and then found that he talked to the client, designed the system and then never bothered to show what he did to the client and ask if that was what they wanted. I ended up having to do his job over and then bring it in and on the original schedule.

There were a whole bunch of us who were able to do both jobs back in the day. We already had a business background before we got into IT and we knew what to ask and what to do with it and how to work with the users. I find that most of the consultants I worked with toward the end of my career did a great job of drawing up charts but none of them worked with the client to see how the users worked and what they needed. As a result almost every system designed by a consultant had to be redrawn and I ended up as a contractor doing their job and my job as well. Try to implement a 400 page system where the majority of the design is bubble charts and gantt charts and pretty pictures but the basic design is shown to the executives and not to the workers. You end up with a great boat anchor.

What needs to happen is close work with consultants/designers, contractors and employees at all levels to ensure that it all hangs together and the needs of the client are met. That would require a big dose of ethics for the company furnishing the consultants and contractors, something that I found was in short supply personally. I left one consultant company when I found that they were billing me at over $1000/day and paying me $300 and did nothing more than write the check. They never even took me to lunch. This was in the early 1980's BTW. I let them know toute suite that I was not a happy camper and was leaving and exactly why. Don't know if they ever straightened up but I felt they were ripping everyone off, their contractors and the client both. Never worked for an organization like that again.

Posted by: rhomp2002@...   Posted on: 06/25/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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