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A
contractor is hired to implement specific work and to
perform designated tasks.
A consultant, on the
other hand, is hired to achieve a particular result
or outcome
using whatever methods are appropriate to
the situation. A contracting engagement
conducts
some part of the client's ordinary business, whereas
a consulting engagement
is an intervention in
the client's business to address an extraordinary challenge
or to
achieve a positive change in the way the client
does business.
SEA
is a product software development consultancy.
We
are engaged by our clients to provide unique talents
and abilities that will improve
the condition of
the client and add value to its business. The
value we add is to
significantly improve the client’s
ability to select, conduct, and complete software
engineering
projects that matter to its business.
Because
each engagement is about results, our consultants can
consider alternative
methods to achieve those results
and can choose the one that is best for the particular
client
situation. We draw on our own talents and experience,
on the skills and
experience of selected partners,
and of course on the experience, abilities, and expertise
of
our clients. We have found that the most effective
interventions are those that are
highly collaborative
and for which each contributor has a significant stake
in the outcome.
We tend to favor hands-on approaches
with our consultants interacting closely with
the
client’s resources.
We
have found it useful to look at an engagement in terms
of its scope, its time
horizon, and the role that
SEA
consultants take in the engagement.
•
The scope refers to the choice of areas that an engagement
covers. We call these
“capability
areas” in our model of product software development and
“service areas”
in
the service model (see the Services page). During
the pre-engagement interviews,
we consider those areas that will be part of the engagement
and which capabilities
in each
area will be addressed (which services will be provided).
•
The time horizon of the engagement refers to the time-frame
in which the results
of the engagement
are needed. Some engagements have short-term goals
that
require immediate or even
urgent attention. Other engagements are long-term
efforts
at acquiring or enhancing an organization’s ability
to create or procure
software for
its products. Still others have intermediate-term
goals or have
a combination of
short- and long-term objectives.
•
The role that SEA
takes in a client engagement refers to the relationship
of the
consultant to the client
in order to achieve the goals of the engagement. The
consultant
can take one, two, or
all three roles as an analyst, an advisor, or an expert.
•
As an analyst, the consultant focuses on the client’s
abilities to conduct software
development
that serves the needs of their business. Using our proprietary
Product
Development Pyramid
and a multipoint checklist, the consultant examines
and
evaluates the client’s existing capabilities in the
areas within the desired scope.
His
goal is to answer key questions for each area: Are
required capabilities present?
Are
they adequate? How can they be developed to extend
productivity and
competitive
advantage? The output is an assessment of the
client’s abilities in each
of
the selected areas.
•
As an advisor, the consultant is a coach, focusing on
enriching the client’s
capabilities
to produce software in the areas within the scope of
the engagement.
He
first analyzes the client’s abilities in the areas,
and then helps the client acquire
missing
capabilities and strengthen capabilities that are essential
to meeting their
product
goals. The advisor role requires the most collaboration
with the client
and
offers the greatest long-term benefits.
•
As an expert, the consultant is accountable for the
production of specific
software
deliverables, directly or indirectly performing the
work needed to deliver
the
work product(s). This role is usually combined
with that of the advisor in
a
hands-on undertaking when SEA
provides the required solution and assists the
client
in developing the capability for themselves. The
expert role by itself is also
appropriate
when the client has a unique situational need that is
unlikely to be
repeated,
and skill transfer is not a requirement.
There
is a correlation between time horizon and scope: Larger
scopes are associated
with strategic engagements
(longer time horizons) and smaller scopes with short-term
engagements.
The main objective of long-term engagements is
to improve the client’s
overall software production
abilities, while the main objective of short-term engagements
is
usually to get something critical done (and to learn
something valuable in the process).
It makes sense
therefore to talk about three types of client engagements:
•
In a strategic engagement, we examine a client’s abilities
to do software product
development,
and then work with the client to develop necessary capabilities
to meet
their strategic business
goals. The goal is to increase the client’s overall
return on its
software investment
by choosing the right areas and right forms of investment
and how
that investment is managed.
The scope is broad and the time horizon tends
to be long,
segmented into several
delivery periods.
•
A tactical engagement is for a challenged product or
project in which urgent
intervention
is necessary. We quickly assess the needs of the
situation, and then apply
specialized
services to help the client manage and resolve the immediate
challenge.
The scope is narrowly
focused and the time horizon tends to be relatively
short.
•
In a targeted engagement, we apply our expertise in
specific technical or management
tasks,
including analysis, evaluation, training, and skill
transfer. It is an à la carte
approach
to an engagement that offers the client the most flexibility
in choosing specific
long-term
or short-term goals, but with limited scope.
For
each type of engagement, the role of the SEA
consultant can be as analyst,
as expert, and/or as
advisor. The role that the consultant takes in
an engagement can
thus be plotted on a two-dimensional
graph, as shown below.
The
horizontal axis represents the focus on growing capabilities
to produce software.
Tactical engagements tend to
deemphasize the transfer of skills and the growth
of
capabilities, whereas that is the whole point of strategic
engagements. The vertical
axis represents the
focus on applying expertise to resolve the issue. At
the lower end,
the consultant acts as an analyst;
in the middle, he acts as an advisor; and at the top
end,
he is acting as the expert. The nine titles
shown in the graph represent the effective role
that
the SEA
consultant takes when an engagement lies in the corresponding
zone.
Every
client is different, so every engagement is different.
We invest time during our
pre-engagement interviews
to understand the client’s stated needs and to establish
the
appropriate type of engagement (its scope and time horizon)
and to choose the
right roles for SEA
consultants to take in the engagement.
Acknowledgement:
The nature of the graph and some of the titles
are taken from
Alan Weiss, Million Dollar Consulting,
Third Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2003.
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