First of all, let me get one thing out of the way: yes, I’ve missed a month. July will need two posts. June just went by so fast. May be for the best though. See what I did there?

A man fixing a shipwreck

Prologue

I’ve read a bunch of books in the last 2 years. Prior to that I was on a streak of technical books: no fiction, no other kind of non-fiction except technical books about Software Engineering and Data Science.

Note

I had a whole rant here about e-book readers, and buying things that you will never own (hello Nintendo). Let me spare you, dear reader, of my reveries.

Then I decided to take a break. I read about philosophy, psychology, productivity, management, and organizations. None of those books prepared me for working as a consultant.

The Shipbuilder’s Calling

What leads a stakeholder in a large corporation to decide to hire a consultant? It takes a series of unfortunate events to take place, for these problem-solvers to be summoned from their open-space lairs. Let’s wear the Consultee’s hat and do the thought exercise together.

First of all, there must be a problem. There is a closed system, heating up, building up pressure. Could have been a fancy new technology, could have been tech debt. Chances are, someone confidently talked their way into solving a business problem, but soon realized they have no idea how to deliver it.

Secondly, for it to require miracle-workers it must be a chaotic, time-bound, one-off effort. Sometimes companies are able to spend their own resources at the problem, if they believe their staff is qualified enough to find the solution. Startups often can’t afford to hire consultants, so allow some problems to be ignored completely. The math for hiring a consultant only works out when the ramp up time $\Delta T$ of your people feels wasteful, compared to the consultant’s fee $F$.

$$ should \_ hire \doteq F_{internal} \cdot \Delta T_{internal} \gt F_{external} \cdot \Delta T_{external}$$

The key word in the last paragraph is “chaos”. Time-limited work? Desirable, people perform better under time pressure (seriously, check the literature on timeboxing). One-offs? I would even go as far as suggesting a healthy backlog should have a small percentage of one-offs or ad-hoc requests. But chaos? No, that’s inadvisable.

The Stowaway Captain

Who are they, then, those who brew this concoction of cortisol? I’ve already answered that. It’s the people who are able to talk their way into things. The high-achievers (according to their Linkedin profile); the 5K-running coffee-zombies; the ones who speak louder in the Zoom meeting. The non-agreeable but non-industrious types. The indolent dukes and duchesses of the corporate world.

Back to our equation, consulting firms offer them the perfect solution. They can quite literally throw money at their problem. The risk is gone, thanks to a well-crafted statement of work, where both sides are happy to over-promise. Side A lies about being able to onboard side B, and B lies about being the perfect partner to address A’s problem.

There are only two outcomes here: either the consultant delivers the solution despite the structural issues; or the consultant halts the work midway, detailing why this issue can’t be solved. No happy ending for the village.

A captain that can't read a compass

The Compass

I’ve worked in products/startups, and in consulting/contracting/outsourcing. Had good and bad jobs in both. My career has been basically half and half at this point.

Type Experience Time (y)
Product Bad 1
Contracting Good 2
Product Good 1
Outsourcing Good 2.5
Consulting Bad 1
Product Good 2
Product Bad 0.5
Product Good 3
Consulting/Management   2

I’m not one for talking. What makes me good at my job is that I listen way more than I talk. And I read everything the company lets me read. And I write what they let me write. I also don’t care for chaos, I’m very orderly (only at work, I can hear my wife saying) and hard-working.

Projects I’m a part of have very structured onboardings because I know all 17 permissions people need, to do their jobs. Projects I’m a part of don’t need off-boardings because people already know what they should know. And what they don’t know, is already written down (see this previous essay).

These are not unrealistic expectations. These are standards. This is where the bar should be, and we should expect high standards. Constantly having to apply their honed carpentry talents on shipwrecks caused by ill-advised captains, is the curse of the consultant.

The Treasure Hunt

The silver lining here is that, as is common in high-risk operations, the rewards are high. Despite having to hang around in high pressure, fast-paced environments, rates are often high. Bonuses are common, and being able to help people in their time of need is very satisfying.

To me, personally, the absolute best two perks of the job are:

  1. Learning, Developing, and Spreading Best Practices.
  2. Getting to work on a multitude of technologies, projects, and people. I’ve personally gotten to work with over 20 programming languages, countless data platforms, packages, libraries, frameworks, etc. Had the chance to work in every single capacity of software projects, and worked with people from all continents, most religions, and backgrounds.