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Some of the best people I've worked with were Deloitte people. I hate this generalization of large consultancy firms. Sure, there are assholes, but a large part

Some of the best people I've worked with were Deloitte people. I hate this generalization of large consultancy firms. Sure, there are assholes, but a large part of the work force is really doing the best they can. I worked for a small consultancy company (that you could call a startup) on large projects. We delivered a garbage product, after the deadline and way out of budget. Why? Because large companies are really bad at knowing what they need and sales is really bad at telling them that. No matter how small or big the company, you will see this happening, because there are always incompetent people promising impossible things. Just look at the hundreds of startups that burn money trying to deliver on their promises and end up dying.

AdrianB1 6y ago
The generalization is not about the employees of the large consulting firms, but about the business practices in these companies and it is quite accurate.
- donkeyd 6y ago
  A 'company' can't actually do anything, only its employees can. Anything said about a company is therefore also said about their employees, since they are what forms the company and perform the actions in the name of the company.
exikyut 6y ago
Corollary this comment helped me realize: the successes and failures of any environment that doesn't stick around are forgotten, thus the failures of the commodity startup industry do not disseminate nearly as widely as idle commentary/banter about poor customer service associated with a specific brand.
p_l 6y ago
I once got pretty far into recruitment with Accenture, and got to speak with management pretty high up the chain. It left me with a very curious thought, namely that there's something very rotten that infects any corporation in that business, cause it was nearly a mantra that every higher-level that was part of the interview repeated - that they need people who can tell customer "No" and keep things in reasonable scope and done right. As if there was some managerial disease across the sales, engineering and clients that pushed towards certain bad outcomes. Mind you, some areas actually do have such "disease" that is remarkably well studied for something so ephemeral - for example in aviation, flying around VIPs tends to quickly spiral into bad behaviour, with bad things done on basis like "we couldn't let PM be late", caused among other things by gratitude of the PM and thus crews trying to do a little extra. This required separate review and controls to keep from happening and quick negative feedback applied by safety bureau every time it happened, otherwise it would spiral out.
- user5994461 6y ago
  That makes sense. Scope creep is the main thing that's killing large software project. The client doesn't know what they want yet every middle manager and department is constantly requesting new features. If a software contractor wants to deliver anything within some time and budget, they have to manage the scope tightly.
- donkeyd 6y ago
  Late reply, so I hope you still see it: Like the other commenter said, it's logical. It's not a managerial disease, it's just inherent to big projects that details are never clear at the start of the project, but clients do want a clear cost projection. What happens is that a scope is agreed upon and so is a price. If the scope increases, so should both the price and the deadline. The client never wants this to happen, because it's their money. The contractor can then do either of three things: - Don't build the feature or remove another feature - Make the client pay for the feature - Lose money on the feature Having a developer or a sales manager or whatever, that can't say no always tends to lead to the third option, which is the one that isn't desirable. Therefore, you need someone to say no, followed by 'unless...'. The big issue with Agile (for a consulting firm) is that this is inherent to the way of work, because in Agile the end result shouldn't be clearly defined, which means endless discussions on scope. Because of this, it's even more important to have developers and project managers who can say no (unless...). This is mostly important for project work. Many consultancy firms also do hourly work, where most of this risk is with the client anyway. Even then, however, you still need to be able to say no sometimes.

AdrianB1 6y ago

The generalization is not about the employees of the large consulting firms, but about the business practices in these companies and it is quite accurate.

donkeyd 6y ago
A 'company' can't actually do anything, only its employees can. Anything said about a company is therefore also said about their employees, since they are what forms the company and perform the actions in the name of the company.

exikyut 6y ago

Corollary this comment helped me realize: the successes and failures of any environment that doesn't stick around are forgotten, thus the failures of the commodity startup industry do not disseminate nearly as widely as idle commentary/banter about poor customer service associated with a specific brand.

p_l 6y ago

I once got pretty far into recruitment with Accenture, and got to speak with management pretty high up the chain. It left me with a very curious thought, namely that there's something very rotten that infects any corporation in that business, cause it was nearly a mantra that every higher-level that was part of the interview repeated - that they need people who can tell customer "No" and keep things in reasonable scope and done right. As if there was some managerial disease across the sales, engineering and clients that pushed towards certain bad outcomes. Mind you, some areas actually do have such "disease" that is remarkably well studied for something so ephemeral - for example in aviation, flying around VIPs tends to quickly spiral into bad behaviour, with bad things done on basis like "we couldn't let PM be late", caused among other things by gratitude of the PM and thus crews trying to do a little extra. This required separate review and controls to keep from happening and quick negative feedback applied by safety bureau every time it happened, otherwise it would spiral out.

user5994461 6y ago
That makes sense. Scope creep is the main thing that's killing large software project. The client doesn't know what they want yet every middle manager and department is constantly requesting new features. If a software contractor wants to deliver anything within some time and budget, they have to manage the scope tightly.
donkeyd 6y ago
Late reply, so I hope you still see it: Like the other commenter said, it's logical. It's not a managerial disease, it's just inherent to big projects that details are never clear at the start of the project, but clients do want a clear cost projection. What happens is that a scope is agreed upon and so is a price. If the scope increases, so should both the price and the deadline. The client never wants this to happen, because it's their money. The contractor can then do either of three things: - Don't build the feature or remove another feature - Make the client pay for the feature - Lose money on the feature Having a developer or a sales manager or whatever, that can't say no always tends to lead to the third option, which is the one that isn't desirable. Therefore, you need someone to say no, followed by 'unless...'. The big issue with Agile (for a consulting firm) is that this is inherent to the way of work, because in Agile the end result shouldn't be clearly defined, which means endless discussions on scope. Because of this, it's even more important to have developers and project managers who can say no (unless...). This is mostly important for project work. Many consultancy firms also do hourly work, where most of this risk is with the client anyway. Even then, however, you still need to be able to say no sometimes.