Triangle Arrangement
The triangle like arrangement is also seen commonly in consulting. As I am part of a consulting organization on campus I can share my experience of a triangle like arrangement. A consultant is also the agent of the client and the firm. In certain situation, it is possible that a conflict of interest may arise between the client's demands and the firm. The representative of the consultants working on a project is the project manager. He or she is the middleman between the actual firm and client.
I will give an example of what recently happened on one of my projects. I will have to use discretion as I have signed a non-disclosure agreement. However, I will have to inform you of the basics before I delve into the process. Once the firm (upper management) signs clients to a semester project, there is a meeting between potential clients and the firm. In this meeting, the statement of work is discussed and agreed upon before the official signing of the contract. The statement of work is essentially the work that the consultants have to do in order to be paid.
However, at times there are tasks that are added to the scope of work that is usually fulfilled by the team. In this instance, it was not. My team was consulting for a company who wanted to enter the education market with their product. Thus, the client asked us if we could make some video tutorials on their product. My project manager was intrigued and thought it was feasible. The manager also thought that it would be cool to be featured on a video that may potentially get hundred thousands of views. As a result, the manager approached the firm and informed of about the situation. However, the firm was not as eager as for the company to take part in a video, it would have to be of production quality. There was essentially an issue of quality as the firm tries to give its clients the best quality service as possible. The firm also thought that this should have been brought up when they discussed the statement of work.
Hence, a compromise was struck and my group voluntarily decided to provide a list od companies that could outsource the work for the client. The clients were happy with this fact and in the end everything was resolved in a professional way without too much conflict.
However, there are cases in the real world where this arrangement can be quite trick.
I will give an example of IT. It is common for a tech consulting company to lose out on its employees as they are hired by the client once the consultation is over. To prevent this, companies have buy out clauses so if a client does try to poach a companies employees they will be compensated monetarily wise.
When I was in the campus IT organization, it embraced a project management process the last year or two I was was there. I recall there being an explicit change management component. So I wonder why that wasn't used in the case you relayed.
ReplyDeleteNow, in telling your story, you might have talked some about why a company would want to use student consultants rather than professional consultants. Of course, cost is part of the story. Is there something else that matters as well?
One of the things I didn't like about project management methodology is that it seemed to required you to know a lot up front, and it was often my experience, especially with something fundamentally new, that you didn't know things and you would learn by doing. The change management I mentioned seemed like a block to me on further learning.
On the other hand the process does discipline expectations regarding how long it should take to get things done and to how much resource will be brought to bear. Getting expectations in line is a big deal in any project.
As to consultants being hired by the company, where they've done a project well, we should ask whether it is in fact efficient for that to happen - so the consulting project is something like an internship - or if it is disruptive to the consulting company. I am not sure which it is in the case you describe. But I think such turnover is pretty normal and to be expected.
A main reason for companies to use student consultants is like you said the price. We cost a fraction of what other consulting companies cost. However, by choosing a student run consulting organization a company is widely exposed on campus easier if that is what they wish. For example, a company at research park can partner with a consulting organization to become more involved on campus.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the consulting project is an internship in a sense. However, I am talking about a company like Accenture doing a project for a bank and then the bank hires Accenture's employees. This is good for the bank, as working on the project gives the consultant internal knowledge that cant be learned otherwise.
It was interesting to learn about companies poaching consulting clients as I was unaware of this beforehand. It would seem that there might be more motivation in the real world to go above and beyond what is in the contract in hopes of being poached by a company and potentially getting a salary increase. It is interesting to ponder how companies try to dissuade and stop turnover other than making the companies pay them.
ReplyDeleteI liked your post. I was interested in hearing more about what kind of tasks usually get added to the scope of the work as you mentioned? Also, fortunately an agreement was reached, but do you have any insight on what would have happened if a solution had not arose? Are there any examples you saw of a large problem not being solved to satisfy both parties?
ReplyDelete