"No one deployed an application as large as yours, based on this Software Product"

In a previous post titled: Consultants Typology: The Self-deprecating Consultant, I promised to depict examples of my consultancy, which was exactly the opposite of a Self-deprecating Consultant consultancy. 

This post describe a Case Study of that type few decades ago.

The title of this post is a quote of the words I said to a CIO. I implied that the product's Scalability is not adequate for thousands of users. 

I could say it explicitly as well, however my goal was to perform a consultancy project and get paid for it. 

The first step of the consultancy will be dedicated to proving that using the product he thought of is a guaranteed failure. 

The second step will be a selection process of an adequate product. 

The third step could be helping the customer to deploy the selected product properly.

Surprise
"No problem, I will be the first to deploy a large application based on this product". 
He did not use my consultancy services.

The CEO was fired after completing the system development and deploying it. 
The system worked perfectly with 10 users and 20 users, but was collapsed when hundreds of users used it. 

The system was build for few thousand users. The CEO wasted few years and a lot of money. 

The Business users lack a crucial Core Business application.     

A Conspiracy of Silence
About 50% of the enterprises in my country selected that product for Large Applications. All of them fail and lost Time and Money.

No one told his colleagues that he failed ( except a brave CIO presenting his failure in a conference few years after the failure).

I was less popular than other Consultants by worrying all my customers not to select the Software product. 

I lost Consultancy Projects bids because the Local Distributor was large and influential.

Is anyone Capable of Deploying the Software Product successfully for Complex Applications used by a Large number of users?
The answer is definitely not. 
The product was an excellent product, as long as it was deployed for relatively simple applications used by less than 100 users.  

The CIO was arrogant:
The number of organizations in USA which fail was large. No organization in USA was successful.

The assumption that all of them fail because they were not wise or were not good IT professionals was ridiculous.

Gartner's analysts, Meta Group analysts and IDC analysts opinion was similar to mine.

My Take
I was lucky. I recommended to many customers to avoid of that product, as far as Large and Complex systems were concerned. The CIO which was fired was the only one who ignored my advice. 



  

Consultants Typology: The Self-deprecating Consultant

This post is the third post in the Consultants Typology posts. The first post is about two different Consultant types: All Around Consultants and Niche Consultants. The second post described the Consultants who knows everything. 

The term Self-deprecating was used in another post: Customer Typology: The Self-deprecating Customer.
That post described a Customer who accepts any thing a Consultant recommends. This post describes an upside down state: The Consultant accepts anything the Customer would like him to recommend.

The ideology of the Self-deprecating Consultant
The Self-deprecating Consultant first priority is a satisfied customer.

In order that the customer will be satisfied, he assumes that the customer, would like confirmation of his views, therefore he supports the customers views enthusiastically.

For example, if the Customer has to select a Software product, the Consultant will praise the product, which he assumes the customer prefers. He will explain why that product fits better than other products to the customer's requirements. He will explain: why this product's future is brighter than other products' future, the advantages of the product's vendor in comparison to other vendors etc.

Sometimes, an experienced consultant, could describe the advantages better than the customer. 

Who should use the Self-deprecating Consultant's services?
When the customer is a high class professional, who can make the right decision and knows how to execute the project, he actually does not need a professional consultant.  

The main issue is approval by the top management. The Self-deprecating Consultant could be a valuable resource: He is an experienced Consultant who worked for many enterprises, he is not an employee,  so he could be less biased by intra-organizational politics.


Why you should use another Consultant's services?
"The Failure is orphan" but not in the case of the Self-deprecating Consultant. The Self-deprecating Customer could blame his Consultant, but the Self-deprecating Consultant has no one to blame. He will be responsible for a failure.
By the way, the probability of a failure is high. 

Usually a Consultant is hired because he is more experienced than the Customer and/or because he is more knowledgeable and/or because his better understanding of the subject matter.  

As far as the Self-deprecating Consultant is concerned, even if he knows and understands better than the Customer, the products will not be better than products produced without any consultant's help.   

What is a Consultant role?
The consultant's role is to help the customer to improve his decisions making and/or the assimilation of the decisions taken. 

The bottom line is real Value for the customer.
In order to perform his role sometimes the Consultant should oppose the Customer's wrong decisions or at least the decisions the Consultant is convinced that are wrong decisions.

The Self-deprecating Consultant will not oppose any Customer's decisions, so sometimes the Customer chose an unsuitable product and/or wrong strategy and/or wrong Architecture and/or wrong Platform etc.  

My Take
More than 40 organizations asked for my consultancy services. I never was a Self-deprecating Consultant. Unfortunately, I had to tell some customers that they should change their decisions. Some of them changed the Consultant instead of changing the direction or the decisions or the proposed technical process. 

Usually, after two or three years they fail.

Other customers were more Flexible and Adaptive and changes their views, decisions, processes etc.
Usually, they provided Value to their organizations.

The next post will include some examples.   

Consultants Typology: The Consultant who Knows Everything

The post: Two Types of Consultants: Niche vs. All Around, was the first post about Consultants typology. The post differentiated between Niche Consultant, whose knowledge and experience is focused in a Niche and All Around Consultants, who know and understand a variety of Niches and topics.

If you read the Customers Typology posts, you probably read: Customers Typology: The Customer who Knows Everything. 

The behavioural patterns of the Consultant who Knows Everything resemble the behavioural patterns of the Customer Who Knows Everything. 

The only difference is that the Customer is capable of making decisions. The Consultant is only advising. 

Is there a Consultants who knows everything?
No, but I had worked with All Around Consultants who know and understand a lot about large number of topics. Some of them have the Capability of learning quickly and understanding deeply new topics.

Of course, the number of theses extraordinary consultants is limited. However, other good All Around Consultants know and understand many topics. 

One may know 7 topics, another 10 topics etc. It is a continuum.
Even some of the Niche Consultants' knowledge could be in two or three different topics. 

It should be noticed, that an All Around Consultant's knowledge and understanding level may vary: In one niche his knowledge could be similar to the knowledge of the best Niche consultants. In another niche his knowledge and understanding could be limited.   
  
Two types of Consultants Knowing Everything
The best All Around Consultants are not included in the group of Consultants Knowing Everything.

In a meeting with one of them (and about twenty Customer's employees) he said: "You should know what you do not know".

The Consultant Knowing Everything do not know everything. They know and understand less than many other consultants.
Usually they label themselves as the best All Around Consultants.

There are two distinct types of Knowing Everything consultants.

The First type: Impressive Past
The first type of The Knowing everything consultant was a CXO years ago. Sometimes he was a successful CIO.  
Information Technology is dynamic and changing. He is no longer a CXO. However, he thinks that he knows everything because of the good old days.

Sometimes the Customer's CIO was his subordinate ten or twenty years ago. The Consultant believes that he knows more and understands more than the CIO. Well, that was true 20 years ago...

The Second type: Sales experts
The first type has impressive past. The second type of the Consultant who Knows Everything could not be proud of his past achievements. 

A second type consultant main qualification is sales. Due to mastering Sales he may convince a Customer that he is the leading expert in any topic, niche or subject.

The Customer may not discover the truth even after a failure. The consultant could find someone else to blame for the failure and convince the Customer that the failure is not because he lacks the skills, but despite of his enormous contribution.

What should The Customer do?
If you can avoid of a Consultant who Knows Everything , do it. 

Ask for recommendations and experience and verify or deny his claims.

The risk is in following his recommendations in a topic he knows nothing about.

Even if you hired him, do not hesitate to hire another Consultant, as soon as you discover that Knowing Everything stands for not knowing the topic, the Niche, the Technology, The system or the Architecture you are trying to get help for.