Do You Really Need a Full-time Web Consultant?
Over the last ten or so years, there have been some interesting shifts in working hours for consultants. Although the traditional 40 hour work week seems to be still very ingrained in people's minds, we have seen many consulting shops move to a 4 day workweek, especially for travelling consultants so they can spend a full two day weekend with their families.
Traditional Full-time
I have been on many large projects where the expectation has always been like that of a regular job. From the consultant's point of view, this creates incredible income security, but for the client, this could be a massive waste of money.
There's no way any project can keep a consultant busy for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and however many weeks the engagement is for. Most consultants end up wasting a lot of time "making puppies" in activities like surfing the web and personal tasks. There are a few diligent people who will endeavour to find "make-work" projects, but even this is wasted funds for the client.
Flex Alternative
We have to remember that consultants are vendors and the expected work hours should be treated as such. You only engage vendors as required. Why on earth would you pay a consultant to sit around and do nothing? I pride myself in being one of the best web architects in North America, and as part of this pride, I need to be providing value at all times.
Many old-school IT leads still resist the whole flex-time idea though. There is a fear that a consultant will suddenly be needed and then no longer available. This however can simply be negotiated as terms of the engagement. If you need me when my plate is full, let me know and I'll re-juggle some priorities.
A lot of consultants do not make themselves available by the hour for logistical reasons, but all consultants have a time granularity they're willing to negotiate.
Bottom Line
Don't waste money to make budgeting easier. If you have a 6 month project, your average consultant will cost you around $100k over the course of the whole project. If the consultant's utilization rate is 50%, then you're basically flushing $50k down the toilet. What if you engage 10 consultants on a project? What does this add up to?
-Andreas
Posted: 2009-05-15 16:14:11
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