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http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080516_004925.html
On the principle that many of us seem to work as consultants, I thought
Cringely's latest rant might be of interest
John
--
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.
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"Doctor John" <doc### [at] gmail com> wrote in message
news:482edb21@news.povray.org...
> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080516_004925.html
>
> On the principle that many of us seem to work as consultants, I thought
> Cringely's latest rant might be of interest
I suppose it depends on the type of consultant, the kind and quality of work
they do, and the value (if any) they add to the client. All too often, the
unfortunate truth is that the consultant does nothing and adds no value, and
charges a large amount of money for the service.
Especially at fault there (imho) are the large consulting companies -
Deloitte Consulting, Accenture, ...I've had the pleasure (and displeasure)
of working with Accenture before. They have a few good people, but mostly
they're trying to sell vastly overpriced serviecs to people that don't need
them.
It gives the good people in the inducstry a bad name.
As a contrast, the company that I'm joining later this year gets a large
portion of their money from crisis fixes. The paw-paw's hit the proverbial
fan, the client has no staff with the necessary skills to fix it, so they
call in outside experts.
A lot of the database consultants that I know or know of spend a lot of
their time doing database performance analysis, performance tuning or
security audits. All, I would argue, require specialised, rare skills that
most companies won't have on hand.
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"Doctor John" <doc### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message
news:482edb21@news.povray.org...
> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080516_004925.html
>
I really like this extract. Could not have said it better....
"Outsourcing, while a very popular recommendation to improve IT, is treating
the symptom and not the problem. The problem is IT applications require lots
of ongoing maintenance and that costs labor, meaning REAL MONEY. Rather than
make applications more reliable and reduce problems, IT managers seem to
prefer shopping for cheaper labor. The problems are still there. It is
cheaper to fix them with offshoring and outsourcing, true, but it often
takes longer. If the end users -- the people who actually make MONEY for the
company (IT doesn't, Lord knows) -- are unable to work from time to time,
this is okay because IT is spending less money.
Yeah, right.
Much of this comes down to the decided lack of professionalism in IT, which
is after all a very new job classification. There is a huge difference, for
example, between someone with an engineering degree and someone in IT who
calls himself an engineer. Real engineers are often valued employees. Their
opinions matter and they have real responsibilities. Good companies know
engineers are important to their business and treat them accordingly. But IT
workers are a commodity and are treated as such. Many IT workers are
clueless about the technologies they are working with. They aspire to be
project managers and are often not very good at that either."
And those few who aren't clueless about the technologies are ignored by
management and their opinions and advice discounted because "They're just
programmers/syadmins/DBAs. The consultants cost a lot more and hence must be
more knowledgeable."
I've personally seen 2 cases of that so far this year
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On Sat, 17 May 2008 20:37:42 +0200, "Gail Shaw"
<initialsurname@sentech sa dot com> wrote:
>I really like this extract. Could not have said it better....
If you had you could have been a consultant :)
I agree with both of your posts and I've worked for Accenture, IBM,
Origin and SAP as an external (read contractor). Some of their
consultants are good but most are just expensive with enormous chare
out rates. Me I'm a functional consultant, I try to create a system
that users can use but most of the time I write documentation that
ticks boxes for the project managers. But then I started on the shop
floor and am not very good at BS :)
--
Regards
Stephen
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From: John VanSickle
Subject: Re: Consultants - a good thing? Discuss
Date: 17 May 2008 16:42:21
Message: <482f432d@news.povray.org>
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Doctor John wrote:
> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080516_004925.html
>
> On the principle that many of us seem to work as consultants, I thought
> Cringely's latest rant might be of interest
A ______ and his ______ soon are ______ .
Regards,
John
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Gail Shaw wrote:
> And those few who aren't clueless about the technologies are ignored by
> management and their opinions and advice discounted because "They're just
> programmers/syadmins/DBAs. The consultants cost a lot more and hence must be
> more knowledgeable."
Certainly the company I work for won't listen to a damn thing *I* say.
But hey, I'm just the tea boy. I keep the servers running, but I don't
really *know* anything about anything. It's not as if I spent 6 years of
my life and tens of thousands of pounds in loans to study computing, or
like I've been running these same systems for 5 consecutive years now,
or anything like that...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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John VanSickle wrote:
> Doctor John wrote:
>> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080516_004925.html
>>
>> On the principle that many of us seem to work as consultants, I thought
>> Cringely's latest rant might be of interest
>
> A ______ and his ______ soon are ______ .
>
> Regards,
> John
Fool, money, parted?
John
--
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.
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How did a fool and his money *get* together in the first place??
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> How did a fool and his money *get* together in the first place??
>
The fool's father died.
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> How did a fool and his money *get* together in the first place??
>
He inherited it from a distant relative :-)
John
--
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Gail Shaw wrote:
>
>> And those few who aren't clueless about the technologies are ignored by
>> management and their opinions and advice discounted because "They're just
>> programmers/syadmins/DBAs. The consultants cost a lot more and hence
>> must be
>> more knowledgeable."
>
> Certainly the company I work for won't listen to a damn thing *I* say.
> But hey, I'm just the tea boy. I keep the servers running, but I don't
> really *know* anything about anything. It's not as if I spent 6 years of
> my life and tens of thousands of pounds in loans to study computing, or
> like I've been running these same systems for 5 consecutive years now,
> or anything like that...
>
As usual, Gail has said nothing with which I can disagree.(I'm not
damning with faint praise, I just couldn't think of a way of phrasing it
better)
The effect of these (mis)management decisions is demonstrated by
Invisible. Totally demoralised, he's a prime candidate for poaching by a
competitor that values its employees' knowledge, expertise and
commitment more. I suspect that even if the idiots he works for were to
double his salary he'd still be looking for another job
John
--
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.
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Doctor John wrote:
> The effect of these (mis)management decisions is demonstrated by
> Invisible. Totally demoralised, he's a prime candidate for poaching by a
> competitor that values its employees' knowledge, expertise and
> commitment more. I suspect that even if the idiots he works for were to
> double his salary he'd still be looking for another job
To quote Team America, "**** YEAH!"
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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From: John VanSickle
Subject: Re: Consultants - a good thing? Discuss
Date: 18 May 2008 14:24:53
Message: <48307475@news.povray.org>
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> How did a fool and his money *get* together in the first place??
We call it taxation.
Regards,
John
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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: Consultants - a good thing? Discuss
Date: 18 May 2008 15:16:21
Message: <48308085@news.povray.org>
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On Sun, 18 May 2008 12:57:24 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> How did a fool and his money *get* together in the first place??
Good question - John's answer is the most interesting, the other two were
my first thought....
But if those who the fool inherited from realised the fool is a fool,
then it could be guessed that the ones the inheritance comes from were
even more foolish than the fool, thus bringing the question full circle.
Jim
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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: Consultants - a good thing? Discuss
Date: 18 May 2008 16:02:37
Message: <48308b5d@news.povray.org>
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John VanSickle wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> How did a fool and his money *get* together in the first place??
>
> We call it taxation.
I call that "P3WNED!"
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Doctor John <doc### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080516_004925.html
There's an interesting point there: If an IT firm hires a consultant,
are they really expecting that if everything is just fine in that IT firm,
the consultant will admit it? Is the consultant going to say "I see nothing
wrong in the way you are doing things"?
Of course not. That's bad business for the consulting firm. It would
mean that the consulting firm gets next to no money from that IT firm.
The consultant is going to find "problems" no matter what it takes. The
consultant is going to find ways to get money from the IT firm, no matter
what it takes.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> There's an interesting point there: If an IT firm hires a consultant,
> are they really expecting that if everything is just fine in that IT firm,
> the consultant will admit it? Is the consultant going to say "I see nothing
> wrong in the way you are doing things"?
>
> Of course not. That's bad business for the consulting firm. It would
> mean that the consulting firm gets next to no money from that IT firm.
> The consultant is going to find "problems" no matter what it takes. The
> consultant is going to find ways to get money from the IT firm, no matter
> what it takes.
One also has to wonder why you'd hire a consultant if you didn't think
anything was wrong...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> There's an interesting point there: If an IT firm hires a consultant,
> are they really expecting that if everything is just fine in that IT firm,
> the consultant will admit it? Is the consultant going to say "I see
> nothing
> wrong in the way you are doing things"?
That's impossible, there'd be at least one thing wrong, the fact that they
hired a consultant when they didn't need to :-)
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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > There's an interesting point there: If an IT firm hires a consultant,
> > are they really expecting that if everything is just fine in that IT firm,
> > the consultant will admit it? Is the consultant going to say "I see
> > nothing
> > wrong in the way you are doing things"?
> That's impossible, there'd be at least one thing wrong, the fact that they
> hired a consultant when they didn't need to :-)
I can perfectly well imagine an IT firm hiring a consultant to get an
opinion on whether the IT firm is maximizing profit or not, even though
there are no glaring problems.
In other words, "we are doing fine, but maybe we could do even better?"
--
- Warp
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On 19 May 2008 02:29:24 -0400, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>The consultant is going to find "problems" no matter what it takes. The
>consultant is going to find ways to get money from the IT firm, no matter
>what it takes.
Well I was once hired to recommend if a company should put in the
maintenance module of SAP. The answer was no to the disappointment of
the consultancy and relief of the maintenance department (two men and
a planner)
--
Regards
Stephen
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Warp wrote:
> the consultant will admit it? Is the consultant going to say "I see nothing
> wrong in the way you are doing things"?
Interestingly, in California we have annual inspections of vehicles for
emissions control. I.e., every year, you have to get your car checked
to see if you're polluting too much.
Sometimes you get a notice requiring you to go to a "test only" center.
These places can test your car, but they're not allowed to fix it if you
fail. Hence, they have no impetus to lie about whether you failed or not.
Seems like you might be able to arrange something similar if you were
clever.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:483468ce$1@news.povray.org...
> Seems like you might be able to arrange something similar if you were
> clever.
>
Interesting idea. Call the consultant in to just comment on the current
processes/procedures/system with an understanding that they will not be
retained to rectify anything.
I wonder how well it would work in practice. The phrase 'kick back'
unfortunatly comes immediatly to mind.
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From: Nicolas Alvarez
Subject: Re: Consultants - a good thing? Discuss
Date: 22 May 2008 22:36:34
Message: <48362db2@news.povray.org>
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http://www.despair.com/consulting.html
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