4 ms·

AS someone who has both read the book and interacted with "big 4" names a few times this is going to be one of those "underrated" comments you sometimes see her

AS someone who has both read the book and interacted with "big 4" names a few times this is going to be one of those "underrated" comments you sometimes see here. At my previous place of employ they made some really terrible decisions which ended up costing a LOT of money later. Their response was classic "the design was vetted by McKinsey".. No.. you sent them what you wanted to do, they told you what you wanted/needed to hear and now you are deflecting your decisions.

azemetre 4y ago
I worked for a health insurance provider that paid BCG $1mil to confirm that we should be using agile in our org. It took BCG a month to do their "study." We were already using agile in our org, but nice to know some incesteral relationship between directors/VPs were able to make a nice pay day.
- kennend3 4y ago
  > nice to know some incesteral relationship between directors/VPs were able to make a nice pay day. you should read the book.. The industry is rife with this type of behaviour. There are always stories about how "senior manager" X is basically a shadow employee. While they work for company "Y" their real job is to send business to the consulting mother ship.
  - azemetre 4y ago
    I think I will now. I can't find the comment now, but there was a similar conspiracy about ex-Amazon Managers being paid to force their new employers to adopt AWS on one of the programming subreddits.
    - toyg 4y ago
      There is usually no forcing: they are typically hired because of their AWS knowledge - the business has already decided to go AWS, the new hire is doing what he's expected to do.
  - throwaway202212 4y ago
    This really sounds like a conspiracy theory. That being said, McKinsey (and presumably BCG and Bain) very much embrace their employees leaving to join their clients. It creates a good "referral" network if you will. But more than that, I don't buy it.
    - kennend3 4y ago
      I'm obviously not using a throwaway account like you and so i am not willing to disclose details. But lets say that in my industry this sort of "kickback scheme" is well known. I saw it first hand, and have had friends tell me other instances of it as well. And i am NOT singling out "McKinsey" but consultants in general. As for McKinsey, read the book, they provide examples of this.
      - exclusiv 4y ago
        The throwaways are likely shills (or charitably - ignorant employees that don't wish to dive into any claims about their employer?). There are actual cases involving big four and kickbacks/bonuses and corporate sabotage. One example in the last few years: BCG and NCR Corporation. "It is undisputed that Mr. Benjamin, as an officer of NCR, owed NCR a fiduciary duty that includes a duty of loyalty. The Counterclaims allege sufficient facts to show that Mr. Benjamin breached that duty by entering into a secret agreement with BCG to promote and expedite his candidacy for CEO. The Counterclaims further allege sufficient facts to show that BCG worked with Mr. Benjamin to negotiate a one-sided contract, and remove and replace employees who opposed adoption of the contract, and that BCG advocated for Mr. Benjamin’s promotion to CEO in hopes that he would award BCG with a discretionary bonus." [1] [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv10156/525729/74/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...
        throwaway202212 4y ago
        I can only obviously speak to my own experience and I did not come across anything like this. There's no love lost between me and my former employer FWIW.
  - schnable 4y ago
    It's not always so formal or sinister. I've seen consultants build relationships with younger managers and "rising stars" by buying them lunch and drinks, and even doing some free work that makes them look good. Then the consultant is an easy connection when there's some dollars to hire consultants.
- throwaway202212 4y ago
  Running agile in a small team is one thing, having a company do "agile at scale" is quite another (yes I realise the contradiction in terms). As someone who worked at McKinsey, on several large scale "agile" rollouts the bulk of the work was on re-organising the company (this is not an easy thing to do in companies with thousands of employees - hence bring in the consultants). The driver behind these projects was almost always cost cutting or increasing efficiency. The agile part was mostly window dressing.
  - azemetre 4y ago
    No not at all; this org had existed for two years already, was already using agile for said two years, and successfully delivered a multitude of projects using agile. The driver to me seems to clearly increase complexity for the sake of it in order to push for more billable hours. This was pure graft. Honest Q since you're a throwaway but is this how consultants typically act? Justify simple things to be more complex to lay people and charge them out the wazoo? I think I'm slowly starting to understand why some of my friends are creating their own dev agencies. This racket is rife with stupid money.
    - throwaway202212 4y ago
      That's interesting. I'm curious to know how the internal sponsor of the project sold it internally. It generally takes a lot of motivation to convince your superior (and finance team) to pay the millions McKinsey would charge per week. At the micro level, I would agree that in some cases there was a tendency of some to make things more complex than necessary. The implicit intent here was generally to demonstrate some type of credential to lay people. That being said, at least in my personal experience, most of the actual recommendations were backed by as much data as possible. In the projects I worked on, I don't think a single slide went by without hours of debate and critique by the partners. It was a given that any recommendation should be supported by data. That being said, there are also lots of cases where there is no right/wrong answer - especially given the timeframe (typically 4-8 weeks). Companies basically pay consultants to come in, analyse as much data as feasible and just make some type of informed decision. In most cases the company is either unwilling to make that decision themselves or does not have the ability to do so (i.e. organisation is too complex to tackle this problem within so just get an outsider to cut across the company and get it sorted as best as possible).

azemetre 4y ago

I worked for a health insurance provider that paid BCG $1mil to confirm that we should be using agile in our org. It took BCG a month to do their "study." We were already using agile in our org, but nice to know some incesteral relationship between directors/VPs were able to make a nice pay day.

kennend3 4y ago
> nice to know some incesteral relationship between directors/VPs were able to make a nice pay day. you should read the book.. The industry is rife with this type of behaviour. There are always stories about how "senior manager" X is basically a shadow employee. While they work for company "Y" their real job is to send business to the consulting mother ship.
- azemetre 4y ago
  I think I will now. I can't find the comment now, but there was a similar conspiracy about ex-Amazon Managers being paid to force their new employers to adopt AWS on one of the programming subreddits.
  - toyg 4y ago
    There is usually no forcing: they are typically hired because of their AWS knowledge - the business has already decided to go AWS, the new hire is doing what he's expected to do.
- throwaway202212 4y ago
  This really sounds like a conspiracy theory. That being said, McKinsey (and presumably BCG and Bain) very much embrace their employees leaving to join their clients. It creates a good "referral" network if you will. But more than that, I don't buy it.
  - kennend3 4y ago
    I'm obviously not using a throwaway account like you and so i am not willing to disclose details. But lets say that in my industry this sort of "kickback scheme" is well known. I saw it first hand, and have had friends tell me other instances of it as well. And i am NOT singling out "McKinsey" but consultants in general. As for McKinsey, read the book, they provide examples of this.
    - exclusiv 4y ago
      The throwaways are likely shills (or charitably - ignorant employees that don't wish to dive into any claims about their employer?). There are actual cases involving big four and kickbacks/bonuses and corporate sabotage. One example in the last few years: BCG and NCR Corporation. "It is undisputed that Mr. Benjamin, as an officer of NCR, owed NCR a fiduciary duty that includes a duty of loyalty. The Counterclaims allege sufficient facts to show that Mr. Benjamin breached that duty by entering into a secret agreement with BCG to promote and expedite his candidacy for CEO. The Counterclaims further allege sufficient facts to show that BCG worked with Mr. Benjamin to negotiate a one-sided contract, and remove and replace employees who opposed adoption of the contract, and that BCG advocated for Mr. Benjamin’s promotion to CEO in hopes that he would award BCG with a discretionary bonus." [1] [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv10156/525729/74/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...
      - throwaway202212 4y ago
        I can only obviously speak to my own experience and I did not come across anything like this. There's no love lost between me and my former employer FWIW.
- schnable 4y ago
  It's not always so formal or sinister. I've seen consultants build relationships with younger managers and "rising stars" by buying them lunch and drinks, and even doing some free work that makes them look good. Then the consultant is an easy connection when there's some dollars to hire consultants.
throwaway202212 4y ago
Running agile in a small team is one thing, having a company do "agile at scale" is quite another (yes I realise the contradiction in terms). As someone who worked at McKinsey, on several large scale "agile" rollouts the bulk of the work was on re-organising the company (this is not an easy thing to do in companies with thousands of employees - hence bring in the consultants). The driver behind these projects was almost always cost cutting or increasing efficiency. The agile part was mostly window dressing.
- azemetre 4y ago
  No not at all; this org had existed for two years already, was already using agile for said two years, and successfully delivered a multitude of projects using agile. The driver to me seems to clearly increase complexity for the sake of it in order to push for more billable hours. This was pure graft. Honest Q since you're a throwaway but is this how consultants typically act? Justify simple things to be more complex to lay people and charge them out the wazoo? I think I'm slowly starting to understand why some of my friends are creating their own dev agencies. This racket is rife with stupid money.
  - throwaway202212 4y ago
    That's interesting. I'm curious to know how the internal sponsor of the project sold it internally. It generally takes a lot of motivation to convince your superior (and finance team) to pay the millions McKinsey would charge per week. At the micro level, I would agree that in some cases there was a tendency of some to make things more complex than necessary. The implicit intent here was generally to demonstrate some type of credential to lay people. That being said, at least in my personal experience, most of the actual recommendations were backed by as much data as possible. In the projects I worked on, I don't think a single slide went by without hours of debate and critique by the partners. It was a given that any recommendation should be supported by data. That being said, there are also lots of cases where there is no right/wrong answer - especially given the timeframe (typically 4-8 weeks). Companies basically pay consultants to come in, analyse as much data as feasible and just make some type of informed decision. In most cases the company is either unwilling to make that decision themselves or does not have the ability to do so (i.e. organisation is too complex to tackle this problem within so just get an outsider to cut across the company and get it sorted as best as possible).