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Agree. The secret sauce is very much in how they’re trained to quickly solve problems and synthesize information. In very short time frames. In most cases, at

Agree. The secret sauce is very much in how they’re trained to quickly solve problems and synthesize information. In very short time frames. In most cases, at the outset they don’t have more knowledge than the client though. Disclosure: I used to work at McKinsey

smt88 4y ago
It is laughable hubris to think there's a class of people who can come into an industry, learn it in a few months better than the people who have done it for decades, and fix/improve things. Only a C suite or a mgmt consulting firm could possibly believe that. There's a reason nothing ever permanently changes after mgmt consultants prescribe it.
- zo1 4y ago
  They don't need to learn your domain. Your domain is not special and for all intents and purposes is irrelevant. Thats my take from what I've seen. The issues that companies face are all generic and bad no matter the domain. Think simple things that we usually rant about in software dev: No VCS. Badly modeled domain. Code complexity. Denormalized tables galore. Cludged together OTS and custom components. Esoteric language choices. Code rot. Bad branching choices. Monolithic and brittle codebase. No CICD. No testing. No specs. Rotten confluence pages that weren't kept up to date. And then, the worst: Domain priests that use complicated domain knowledge and rules and self-inflicted complexity to keep the software hostage by telling us we can't fix the above problems. Essentially job security.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Aye, but it is unlikely that a consultant will actually be able to articulate these issues better than someone who has _successfully_ worked in the industry and solved these problems (in contrast to your reverbalization of deadwood as domain priests). Unless, of course, the consultant has worked _successfully_ in the industry for a good length of time. But the class of consultants discussed have not. All squares go this way, all pegs go that way, never shall the twain meet.
  - ren_engineer 4y ago
    >They don't need to learn your domain. Your domain is not special and for all intents and purposes is irrelevant. Thats my take from what I've seen. The issues that companies face are all generic and bad no matter the domain why don't the consultants just cut out the middleman and take over these billion dollar industries if it's so easy? Why bother consulting for tech companies if they can just put them out of business with a direct competitor? Domain expertise apparently doesn't matter, should be easy for these expert managers The number of companies that have gone bankrupt or been disrupted due to short term optimizations recommended by these management consultant companies is massive
- teddyh 4y ago
  > Only a C suite or a mgmt consulting firm could possibly believe that. No, programmers/engineers/etc. are equally susceptible: https://xkcd.com/1831/ https://xkcd.com/1831/ Related: • https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ • https://xkcd.com/1570/ https://xkcd.com/1570/
gnz11 4y ago
Nah, their secret sauce is that they are sales behemoths first and foremost. They are adept at convincing any CEO/SVP to ignore any internal advice from the CEO/SVP's technical teams and sign large, binding contracts instead with them. Also used to work at a big 4.
- jen20 4y ago
  This is the opposite of what I encountered doing consulting, where often the best outcomes were achieved by asking the internal teams what they thought, and then telling the “leaders” who were petrified of accepting such advice without external validation of it.
  - gnz11 4y ago
    Consulting companies will gladly bill you for telling you what you already know. This gets them a foot in the door to start the outsourcing process. For the "leaders" the implicit allure is the personal risk mitigation factor for when things go wrong.

smt88 4y ago

It is laughable hubris to think there's a class of people who can come into an industry, learn it in a few months better than the people who have done it for decades, and fix/improve things. Only a C suite or a mgmt consulting firm could possibly believe that. There's a reason nothing ever permanently changes after mgmt consultants prescribe it.

zo1 4y ago
They don't need to learn your domain. Your domain is not special and for all intents and purposes is irrelevant. Thats my take from what I've seen. The issues that companies face are all generic and bad no matter the domain. Think simple things that we usually rant about in software dev: No VCS. Badly modeled domain. Code complexity. Denormalized tables galore. Cludged together OTS and custom components. Esoteric language choices. Code rot. Bad branching choices. Monolithic and brittle codebase. No CICD. No testing. No specs. Rotten confluence pages that weren't kept up to date. And then, the worst: Domain priests that use complicated domain knowledge and rules and self-inflicted complexity to keep the software hostage by telling us we can't fix the above problems. Essentially job security.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Aye, but it is unlikely that a consultant will actually be able to articulate these issues better than someone who has _successfully_ worked in the industry and solved these problems (in contrast to your reverbalization of deadwood as domain priests). Unless, of course, the consultant has worked _successfully_ in the industry for a good length of time. But the class of consultants discussed have not. All squares go this way, all pegs go that way, never shall the twain meet.
- ren_engineer 4y ago
  >They don't need to learn your domain. Your domain is not special and for all intents and purposes is irrelevant. Thats my take from what I've seen. The issues that companies face are all generic and bad no matter the domain why don't the consultants just cut out the middleman and take over these billion dollar industries if it's so easy? Why bother consulting for tech companies if they can just put them out of business with a direct competitor? Domain expertise apparently doesn't matter, should be easy for these expert managers The number of companies that have gone bankrupt or been disrupted due to short term optimizations recommended by these management consultant companies is massive
teddyh 4y ago
> Only a C suite or a mgmt consulting firm could possibly believe that. No, programmers/engineers/etc. are equally susceptible: https://xkcd.com/1831/ https://xkcd.com/1831/ Related: • https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ • https://xkcd.com/1570/ https://xkcd.com/1570/

gnz11 4y ago

Nah, their secret sauce is that they are sales behemoths first and foremost. They are adept at convincing any CEO/SVP to ignore any internal advice from the CEO/SVP's technical teams and sign large, binding contracts instead with them. Also used to work at a big 4.

jen20 4y ago
This is the opposite of what I encountered doing consulting, where often the best outcomes were achieved by asking the internal teams what they thought, and then telling the “leaders” who were petrified of accepting such advice without external validation of it.
- gnz11 4y ago
  Consulting companies will gladly bill you for telling you what you already know. This gets them a foot in the door to start the outsourcing process. For the "leaders" the implicit allure is the personal risk mitigation factor for when things go wrong.