5 ms·

I am not affiliated with 18F but do work for a major tech company. I am not convinced that the consulting model is better for the kinds of projects that 18F is

I am not affiliated with 18F but do work for a major tech company. I am not convinced that the consulting model is better for the kinds of projects that 18F is trying to undertake, such as developing the web services for government agencies. Most tech companies invest in things such as culture, internal productivity tools, and developer and testing infrastructure that are not deliverables to clients and thus not billable. While these may incur a higher start-up cost, these are critical for ensuring long-term productivity. Correct me if I am wrong but my impression is that the consulting world is much more concerned with delivering and then moving onto the next project, with very little shared work or infrastructure between projects. I'm sure 18F has areas of improvement for how it spends its resources and how it tracks costs and billing. Every organization does. However, I would not be surprised if the reason 18F exists is that the government found that outsourcing this work to consultants led to higher costs and lower quality deliverables compared to products being released by tech companies and thus wanted to try a different approach.

karmajunkie 10y ago
I tend to be of the same mind, but if justifying their existence through billing their services to other government agencies is a part of their charter, then they pretty much have to consider that. Even if a significant portion of their budget is intended to be internally billed, going off on a logo redesign that "costs" 140k worth of meetings and face time to get buy-in is simply not a worthwhile use of the time. As I said earlier I'm not sure that the billable hour is the best way to judge their effectiveness but as a long-time consultant who's worked in both government and private settings, they would do well to find a better compromise of the time.

karmajunkie 10y ago

I tend to be of the same mind, but if justifying their existence through billing their services to other government agencies is a part of their charter, then they pretty much have to consider that. Even if a significant portion of their budget is intended to be internally billed, going off on a logo redesign that "costs" 140k worth of meetings and face time to get buy-in is simply not a worthwhile use of the time. As I said earlier I'm not sure that the billable hour is the best way to judge their effectiveness but as a long-time consultant who's worked in both government and private settings, they would do well to find a better compromise of the time.