Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Golden Answer for Consulting...

In the pre-consulting days I usually had a strong opinion about how, what, why and when things should be done. But lately I'm starting to find it's the same answer to every question. This answer is amazing in it's effectiveness and simplicity. It also really helps me to ensure I'm giving the customer what they want. That answer?


It Depends.


Just that simple. Should we go with lots of low end servers, or fewer mid-range/high end servers? Should we use tape backup or replication to migrate the data? HP or IBM? Solaris, AIX or Linux?


It Depends.


It works so wonderfully because it makes people explain why they're making the choices they're making. They never want to simply know if they should go with choice A or choice B. They could flip a coin, have a google-fight or pick from a Gartner quadrant if the choices were that that easy. But things are never that easy, it depends. It depends on a lot of factors and their not all weighted equally and they're weighted differently by different stake holders. And just to make things even more fun, consultants have their own personal preferences and biases.


It's the conversation that ensues that's the real answer. The conversation where you find out what's driving the choices. The conversation is where you separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves. The conversation is what makes or breaks things. So is it an oversimplification to say that Consulting is the art of conversation?


It Depends.


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