While contemplating the ying and yang of life in the shade during the UK’s recent hot weather, the Badger watched a pair of robin’s taking food to a nest in a nearby ivy-clad tree. He was soon joined by his wife who’d been chatting with some neighbours who are having work done at their property. The neighbours, apparently, are unhappy with the attitude and approach of one of their contractor’s people because they never listen, believe they are always right and know best, and are constantly trying to expand the work to involve more people rather than get the job done. The Badger’s wife had met this person while chatting, and the expression on her face showed that they had not made a good impression! As we sat watching the robins, the Badger was asked if he’d encountered anything similar during his professional IT career. The answer, of course, was yes, and one of the most irritating examples was this.
The Badger’s employer had partnered with a large consultancy firm to win a challenging, major fixed-price contract. The Badger led the resulting delivery for which a large joint team was collocated in one building to ensure everyone could work efficiently together given the aggressive timescale. At both senior and junior levels, the difference in ethos between those with a software/systems development/delivery background and those from the consultancy firm quickly became evident. Staff focused on developing and delivering the required software/system to the contracted processes and standards frequently clashed with those from the consultancy who a) asserted that they knew best, b) insisted on different processes, c) insisted on writing reports, and d) always tried to introduce more of their own expensive junior staff rather than focus on delivering to plan. Things came to a head when one of the consultancy’s junior staff, barely two years out of university, lectured the Badger on his leadership skills. The Badger removed them from the team and escalated his irritation with the consultancy’s overall approach to delivery to the firm’s leadership. This had the desired effect. The consultancy firm realised they had to change their engagement model or they would be managed out of the project. The delivery went on to be highly successful, but the episode coloured the Badger’s view of large consultancies, and their value for money, for many years thereafter.
So, are consultancies and their standard business model under the cosh from AI? It seems so, see here and here, for example. The Badger thinks consulting per se will survive, but that AI will undermine business models that stay based on charging a customer for the number of people deployed and the hours they have worked. Customers want to pay for results rather than hours worked, and that’s always a good thing. In the AI era, consultancies that don’t change their long-standing lucrative business models will inevitably be under the cosh…
