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It's not about the technology. It never has been. You're number one mission whenever you get a contract is to understand the business and figure out how you c

• Silhouette 12y ago
  Demonstrate how you're going to raise their revenues (and do it!) so that it when it comes time for contract renewal, your worth is easily demonstrable (you paid X in exchange for Y millions). This is a nice theory, much promoted on HN by a few high profile posters a while back. Unfortunately, it doesn't necessarily scale well beyond a team size of 1. This may or may not be a problem, depending on the kind of work you want to do. It's also worth noting that if you're going to play that game, you need to be much more of an all-rounder than just someone with technical skills. This will suit some people very well, but it's not for everyone. In short, demonstrating a direct return on investment is a safe and reliable way to convince clients of your worth if you have the option, but it isn't the only way.
  • dreamfactory2 12y ago
    If your team doesn't add business value greater than the sum of its parts, it's simply not effective as a team
    • talmand 12y ago
      Would that not vary based on the goals of the business (and how they define value) and/or project?
      • dreamfactory2 12y ago
        Yes and I'm assuming the business is paying for this team - so effectiveness would be measured by whatever the business goals are at that moment. Constant steering and alignment w business is therefore crucial.
    • Silhouette 12y ago
      There are many ways of adding value. Some are obvious and immediately observable. Some are subtle and/or only observable over time. There are also many ways that any organisation with more than one person contributing could collectively achieve good results, while any given individual personally made anything from a disproportionately positive to a negative contribution. As I said, demonstrating your personal worth through a direct measurement of your contribution is not necessarily easy with team sizes greater than 1.
      • aantix 12y ago
        Many ways to add value, but no one ever argues with the bottom. If we're discussing $200+/hr consultants, you're going to do yourself a disservice if you don't find some way of objectively measuring your contribution. No one ever argues with increases to the bottom line, so start there.
        • Silhouette 12y ago
          Right, but to give one obvious example, you just ruled out a whole industry of trainers who charge a high day rate for giving courses in specialised fields. You only know what bringing those people in was worth after your newly trained team gets better results. Even then, unless the training is in some convenient sales/marketing field where the resulting conversions are easy to quantify, you may not be able to put a dollar amount on the long term value of the knowledge and insights your people gained from the training for a long time. As an extreme example, consider the possibility of a one-day training course for software developers taught by a world class expert for $10K. Maybe one of your developers learned a new defensive programming technique five hours into that day, and that technique later prevented a bug that would have cost your business $1M to rectify. Obviously that training had a very high return on investment, but how is the trainer supposed to demonstrate that to his next client?
          • dreamfactory2 12y ago
            Sales collateral of very highly-paid trainers should have evidence of value and a great way to do that is exactly those kind of real examples, which a highly experienced and effective trainer will have picked up over the years. Reputation is secondary evidence of value of course, though considerably weaker. Strong evidence of value is how people can be persuaded that it's a sweet deal to pay huge amounts to consultants in any field where those consultants come with a long list of similar organisations they helped. For the rest of the training market it would come down to a client requirement for the service, general qualification to do the job, and typical market price - existing budgets and product pricing kicks in at this point rather than ROI on specific individuals or teams. We see this in the dev contract market as well and that's what the article is about - commodity resource vs stars. tl;dr if you can't demonstrate exceptional value, you will trend towards commodity.
• kitsune_ 12y ago
  I disagree because with larger companies, a stakeholder's goal doesn't necessarily align with the general principle of 'making the company more money'.
  • dreamfactory2 12y ago
    Those are the jobs you want to avoid like the plague
• quattrofan 12y ago
  "It's not about the technology. It never has been." exactly, best answer here.
• mgkimsal 12y ago
  "Demonstrate how you're going to raise their revenues (and do it!)" Outside of really small organizations where you can have direct control of all parties, guaranteeing increased revenues (and/or profits) is pretty damn hard. Guaranteeing lower costs, faster operations, increased efficiencies, etc., is easier to achieve, because it's largely within your scope (speaking from a software perspective).
  • aantix 12y ago
    You may not have control over any of the factors you mentioned. Some places are just paralyzed with fear and plagued with red tape. But keep looking for the revenue lift opportunities. Even if you're kept from doing the "right thing", continue to be vocal about your position. If it has validity, eventually it's going to play out and at least you will have a "told you so" when your contract comes up for renewal.
    • mgkimsal 12y ago
      I don't disagree, but "I told you so" doesn't always fly with most people.
      • aantix 12y ago
        Sure. Nothing is guaranteed. All you can do is be insistent on echoing the best advice possible going forward to lift revenues and attempt to remove the roadblocks towards your objectives. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you say "I told you so" and they say "fuck off" and you part ways.