Makai's Blog

Arin Sime wrote a great piece on the iron triangle of software development. Arin proposes we add a fourth dimension to the iron triangle that represents employee morale. Adding employee morale really fills in the model and I’m surprised no one suggested it before.

But there was one question I was left with after reading Arin’s article. Why should business leaders care about employee morale, especially if the project is staffed with consultants?

Who cares if consultants burn out producing software as long as it’s on time, within budget, and fulfills the desired scope? Here are three quick reasons:

1. Negative reputation. Running your business by exploiting others instead of building trust and respect will come back at you. Your customers will find out. This is the Internet Age. Word travels fast. Your business reputation is difficult to build but easily destroyed.
2. Troublesome future projects. A consulting firm that respects its employees will no longer do business with you in the future. Ones that continue to do business with you will staff future projects with less productive workers because good consultants will refuse to work with you.
3. Poor software quality. What is “done” in application development? Software is only as good as the business value it produces. When your business changes, how easy is it to adapt that software? If the software foundation is built on sand and it requires a completely new architecture to handle any changes, the long term value of that software is jeopardized.

Software development is about people. If you screw over your people, it is unpredictable in what ways it will come back to negatively impact you later.

Google received 75,000 applications in a single week in a tight labor market for top technical talent. Here are several potential reasons that may be a bad thing [1]:

1. It takes a lot of time to sort, review, call, interview, decide, and potentially offer to that many applicants. That’s a lot of resources that could be used for something else. If you have developers performing interviews then “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” becomes an issue because the developer’s schedules are so broken up [2].
2. Is the Google reputation for only hiring the best and brightest weakened because they are on a hiring binge? It’s one thing to say “we need more great people!” It’s another to set a public mandate that you’re going to hire 6,000 new employees for an increase of ~23% in total headcount. That’s a big slow company mentality. Doesn’t Google want to figure out a better way to do things?
3. If the brand is damaged, is Google receiving many applications from people who are not qualified? That’s fine in a small company if you can weed out unqualified applicants. But at most big companies there’s people that fall through the cracks. Especially when recruiters are trying to make a hiring target for the month.

In addition to the volume of applications, why does Google need to hire that many new people? The company built their core business with less than 6% (1900/32000) of the total employees they hope to have by the end of 2011. Google’s product portfolio has expanded dramatically since their IPO. Yet it appears inertia is taking over a company that was a start up only 10 years ago.

[1] I am in Washington, DC but it’s really tough to find great available developers here. I’m assuming most other major U.S. and European cities are similar in that regard.

[2] Paul Graham - http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Consulting firms and their consultants are locked in a struggle. In this post I define that struggle as consulting career mismatch.

Have you seen an “I’m an IBM-er” commercial? We learn about the interesting project the speaker on the commercial is working on. He’s employed by IBM. But we never learn the consultant’s name! The speaker’s career benefits if he gains name recognition. Instead IBM takes credit for the consultant’s hard work. But IBM pays the consultant’s salary and for the commercial. IBM wants the positive recognition because it provided the resources to execute the work.

Consulting career mismatch appears when the best interest of your career is misaligned with your consulting firm’s strategic direction. For example, you want to build your reputation as an expert in business intelligence. You want executives to call you when they have a business intelligence question. But your firm, XYZ Consulting, wants you to be one of thousands of “XYZ Business Intelligence Consultants.” XYZ Consulting wants to be the firm that receives the phone call from executives for business intelligence solutions.

IBM is the most obvious example of where consulting career mismatch can occur but it applies to all firms. The mismatch is most poignant at large firms because they have greater leverage over individual consultants.

Large firms want you to be an interchangeable cog in their consulting machinery. If you are a nameless consultant whose proof of excellent work depends solely on the firm’s reputation then you are less valuable without employment at that firm. The firm won’t have to pay you a premium for your services because you do not create as much value on the open market without the firm’s name recognition.

Consulting career mismatch is not inherently bad. You can still have a great career at large consulting firms despite the mismatch. But mismatch can derail your ambitions when aiming to be a recognized expert at a large firm. There is less friction when building your niche reputation as an independent consultant or part of a small firm that depends upon your success to remain in business.

Career mismatch should be seriously considered by every consultant that wants to build a unique personal reputation. The environment at your firm impacts whether or not you are successful and how that reputation is received.