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Managing consultancies is a full-time job in itself. If you don't have someone in your company scrutinizing everything and spot-checking work that comes across

Managing consultancies is a full-time job in itself. If you don't have someone in your company scrutinizing everything and spot-checking work that comes across, they will notice and they will take advantage of it. Starting with strong developers to impress a client and then swapping them out with newbies is standard practice. When we engage with agencies, we make it clear that the people working on our project are expected to be present for the one weekly meeting and that they will be the ones doing the work. We also reserve the right to "fire" specific agency team members and request a replacement if they're not working out. This is crucial as the agencies will often send teams of three: 1 strong developer, 1 strong communicator, and 1 straggler who needs a lot of supervision from the first two. You pay for all of the developers, so you might as well insist that you're getting what you pay for.

opportune 4y ago
The only time I’ve seen working with bodyshops work out was when we had a senior spend most of his time checking their work and managing the project they were staffed on. He also happened to be from the same country/willing to talk with them outside of normal PST working hours. They still didn’t produce great work but they did produce work that was usable and did what we wanted to do. Most of my team actually had started out in consultancies earlier in their career so they knew exactly how things worked. A few times we had to “send someone back” when we got someone who was claimed to be an expert on X but was barely able to do basic tasks on the computer. I’ve seen some consultancies with a much higher hit rate compared to WITCH and co though, on par with regular hiring. I am not privy to the financial details but I suspect they are a lot more expensive.
- xapata 4y ago
  Wipro Infosys Tata C ... ? H ... ?
  - subsubzero 4y ago
    cognizant hcl
commandlinefan 4y ago
> scrutinizing everything and spot-checking work Which leads to another paradox (that I think I first saw Joel Spolsky point out, but I can't find the reference). Business software - and consulting services - always costs $20 either or $200,000. If it costs $20, you just buy it and use it. Once it gets over a certain price point - around $1000 or so - it requires approvals before it can be purchased. This leads to vendors having to develop full in-house departments dedicated to navigating those approval processes, so the price of the software has to be hiked to account for the additional headcount.
- hectormalot 4y ago
  This one, great reading too: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-duckies/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-... It’s a long piece. The “credit card“ vs “3 months of hard core PowerPoint by sales” pricing is about 75% into the post.
dopidopHN 4y ago
I’be been the developer in your trio. 3 or 4 years in noname large consulting stuff. Lead of a teams of joyful green horns in a loosely specify environment. Delivering shit software on loosy deadline. And then I switch to place where everyone is pretty senior. It’s less fun, I like to explain stuff and kinda miss it. But damn, not having to manage junior allow me to just produce large chunk of code faster. And knowing that the guy next door is solid as well allow us to agreed on a contract and call it a day. ( it actually works ) I have little interaction with my coworker and yet our review are actual review. Syntax or petty issue are rarely mentioned. We agreed on linter months ago. Anyway; sorry. Long détour to say that as much as I enjoy getting down with the stragglers, being in a mature team is pretty great.

opportune 4y ago

The only time I’ve seen working with bodyshops work out was when we had a senior spend most of his time checking their work and managing the project they were staffed on. He also happened to be from the same country/willing to talk with them outside of normal PST working hours. They still didn’t produce great work but they did produce work that was usable and did what we wanted to do. Most of my team actually had started out in consultancies earlier in their career so they knew exactly how things worked. A few times we had to “send someone back” when we got someone who was claimed to be an expert on X but was barely able to do basic tasks on the computer. I’ve seen some consultancies with a much higher hit rate compared to WITCH and co though, on par with regular hiring. I am not privy to the financial details but I suspect they are a lot more expensive.

xapata 4y ago
Wipro Infosys Tata C ... ? H ... ?
- subsubzero 4y ago
  cognizant hcl

commandlinefan 4y ago

> scrutinizing everything and spot-checking work Which leads to another paradox (that I think I first saw Joel Spolsky point out, but I can't find the reference). Business software - and consulting services - always costs $20 either or $200,000. If it costs $20, you just buy it and use it. Once it gets over a certain price point - around $1000 or so - it requires approvals before it can be purchased. This leads to vendors having to develop full in-house departments dedicated to navigating those approval processes, so the price of the software has to be hiked to account for the additional headcount.

hectormalot 4y ago
This one, great reading too: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-duckies/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-... It’s a long piece. The “credit card“ vs “3 months of hard core PowerPoint by sales” pricing is about 75% into the post.

dopidopHN 4y ago

I’be been the developer in your trio. 3 or 4 years in noname large consulting stuff. Lead of a teams of joyful green horns in a loosely specify environment. Delivering shit software on loosy deadline. And then I switch to place where everyone is pretty senior. It’s less fun, I like to explain stuff and kinda miss it. But damn, not having to manage junior allow me to just produce large chunk of code faster. And knowing that the guy next door is solid as well allow us to agreed on a contract and call it a day. ( it actually works ) I have little interaction with my coworker and yet our review are actual review. Syntax or petty issue are rarely mentioned. We agreed on linter months ago. Anyway; sorry. Long détour to say that as much as I enjoy getting down with the stragglers, being in a mature team is pretty great.