What Is A Consultant?

By
Steven K. Shapiro

sks@skscci.com


In January of 1984 I started my own business with the intent of providing computer consulting services. Having worked professionally in the software industry for 6 years, I thought that I was qualified to provide these services. While I knew a substantial amount about my specialty, I discovered that there was a lot to learn about dealing with clients. Maybe I was naive, but I thought that a consultant would not need to be involved in company politics. I believed that a consultant would come into a company to perform a particular job which the company could not, or would not, want to do with its own people. Little did I know that sometimes the consultant becomes more involved in politics than anyone else. Over the years I have put together a few categories or profiles of the types of people consultants are expected to become. The key to becoming a successful consultant is to not just be technically competent, but to be able to identify those contracts which will be in your best interest.

The Savior

Some companies are totally lost, behind schedule or just unaware of what they are up against. They seem to believe that if they can find just the right consultant, the entire project will be turned around and will be successful. This is a precarious position. On the one hand, management wants you to succeed, but on the other hand, the staff may resent you because you may exemplify their failures. Nobody likes to be told that they don't know what they're doing, and by the very nature of this position that is exactly what you must do. Some staff members may fear you because their jobs may hang in the balance, and so they see you as an enemy. You may find that your efforts and methods, which worked elsewhere, are totally unsuccessful because those individuals who must implement them are going to do whatever they can to show that your are incompetent and thus undermine your efforts. This does not advance the project, but it does manage to protect the egos and status of the staff.

The Scapegoat

Some companies are totally lost, behind schedule or just unaware of what they are up against. They have given up hope of being successful and they seem to believe that if they can find just the right consultant to blame, they will be off the hook and can save their jobs. As a consultant, you are not expected to succeed and in fact, your failure is required. The staff need to hide their failure behind your efforts. This is a very deceptive position in which to find yourself, because no client will tell you that you are the scapegoat. While they may tout you as The Savior, they will never intentionally let you know that you are the scapegoat. Even though you are expected to fail, you will find that your association with this company will be a waste of your time and detrimental to your reputation, even though it is beyond your control to succeed.

The Advisor

Some companies are in need of assistance. They may have the staff, but they don't have the knowledge. The consultant who comes into this position will find that they are constantly meeting with staff members to analyze the problem and provide suggestions and comments for solution. This can be a frustrating position as you may find that try as they might, they just don't have the skills necessary to implement your advice. They may become annoyed because they see themselves as paying a lot of money for the advice, but not getting any results.

The Hired Hand

Some companies need physical assistance. Either they don't have the expertise on staff or they don't have the resources to spare. What they need is someone to come into the project and do the work necessary. In many cases, this is another frustrating position for the consultant. You may find yourself performing mundane tasks which aren't too terribly interesting. You may spend a lot of time trying to advise the client how to do things better, but you may find that they aren't interested. They have their way of doing things and they don't want to hear about other ways of doing things. They just want you to perform the tasks which you have been assigned.

The Consultant

This is the way you want it to be. As a true consultant to a company, you are expected be able to give advice and lend a hand. They may even be dependent upon you for the success of the project, or at least parts of the project. You will have the ability to advice as to how things are done and what things are done. Your advice will be appreciated and thoughtfully considered. You will get a chance to work directly on pieces of the project. The staff and management will look to you for direction and support and they will have the expectation that you will be instrumental in their success.

Putting it all together

Being able to identify which profile fits a particular contract before you begin the contract will assist you in being able to become successful. The best way to avoid a bad contract is to know what you are up against beforehand. You can maximize your potential for success by identifying the undesirable characteristics of a contract so that you don't get yourself into a bad one in the first place.

When you interview for the contract, consider it a two-way interview. They are not just interviewing you, but you are also interviewing them. You want to find out as much as possbile about the project. For example, how long the project has been ongoing, how many people are working on the project, what the deadlines are like, if they are behind schedule and if so, how far. You also want to know the organizational structure and where you will fit into it. You will want to know your specific responsibilities as well as your authority ( responsibility without authority is a recipe for failure ).

If possible, interview with at least 3 people on the project, preferably the project manager, a supervisor and a team member. In addition to the technical discussions, try to engage in a bit of social conversation. By becoming a `person' rather than an interviewee you may have a better chance of getting a look `behind the scenes' and thus gain a better perspective of what is really going on. It may also be helpful to use anecdotes from previous projects to see if you can get them to either acknowledge that it is the same for their project, not at all applicable, or similar but in a different way. Granted, most individual interviews are only about a half hour long and it is sometimes difficult to get a lot of information in such a short time, but the more information which you can get during the interview, the more informed a decision you can make about the desireability of the contract.

Suppose you do all of these things and accept the contract. Suppose also that after a week or two it turns out that you were totally wrong in your evaluation and you don't think that you can be successful. What do you do? The first thing you should do is meet with your client and express your concerns. The client may come to a new understanding about the project and may be willing to work with you to improve conditions and resolve the issues. If the client is unwilling to work with you to resolve these issues, you may have to consider abandoning the contract. Within the first or second week of the contract, neither you nor the client has a lot invested so it may be preferable for both you and the client to make arrangements to sever your relationship. Sometimes it is better to walk away early and part on a friendly basis rather than sticking around and leaving after 6 months with bad feelings on both sides. The downside is that you tend to risk becoming known as a quitter. If you walk away from a contract every time things get difficult or aren't to your liking, your reputation will suffer and nobody will want to offer you a contract.

Another way to minimize your risk and avoid a `bad' contract is to become associated with a consulting organization. I'm not referring to a social or professional group or club. I'm also not referring to some sort of `body shop' or `job shop' which is only interested in providing bodies to clients. I am referring to a full service consulting organization which provides a variety of consulting services and is interested in long-term relationships between itself, its clients and its consultants.

One of the advantages of being associated with a consulting organization is that you are not alone. Generally speaking, a consulting organization will have an established relationship with most of its clients, or at least an established reputation that even new clients are aware of. These consulting organizations contain people skilled in dealing with clients and it is their responsibility to identify and weed out those clients who have unrealistic or unreasonable expectations. When a consulting organization considers you for a contract with a prospective client, you can be reasonably certain that the client has reasonable expectations and is not looking for a scapegoat or savior. You can also be reasonably sure as to what your role on the project will be. Since the consulting organization has performed much of the `up front' investigation and evaluation of the client's project, you can spend more interview time discussing project issues with the client rather than evaluation issues.

When you accept a contract with a client through a consulting organization, you bring with you the experience of everyone in the consulting organization. If you find yourself in a situation where you are underqualified, the consulting organization has other consultants on hand who could assist you in accomplishing your goals. In short, by associating with a consulting organization you have resources at your disposal which extend beyond the the capacity of any one individual consultant.

While we would all prefer the `perfect' contract, usually it is just not possible. Each contract will contain elements of each of these profiles and it is up to you as the consultant to determine how much of each profile is acceptible to you. At one time or another each of us will find ourselves in one contract or another which may not be to our liking. While that may be the case, a consultants job is to be successful regardless of the environment. If you accept a contract, it is your responsibility to do whatever you can to be successful. There are many ways to maximize your potential for success, and you have just read about most of them.

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