Tech Consultants, Going Beyond Resource Status

Some weeks ago I was sitting at a bar having a casual conversation with one of the younger guys at the table. He had recently worked in an internship for a consultancy, and wasn’t very interested in going down that path. When I asked why, he said: “Consultants are just resources anyway, filling a role that they short term are missing. It's nice to have multiple projects and clients, but you can achieve that too within a company or simply change companies from time to time.”. At the time I didn’t have a solid answer, simply stating that consultants usually are experts in their field and can fix hard to solve problems. But in hindsight I think it’s much, much more than that. I will try to explain why I think Tech Consultants are more than just a resource, and what potential value lies in the role.

The cursed word Resource

In the tech world, the word Resource is usually seen as the bad word to never say out loud. “They treat us as resources!” - Probably every tech consultant at one point in their career. Now, I don’t think we are all that fair to the word. A resource is usually something valuable that helps create more value when used for some output. The negative connotation with the word comes, not unsurprisingly, from the origins of the word being used for things that have clear set values. For example, an oil nation usually has an abundance of the valuable oil resource to sell to other countries, or car manufacturers usually use big amounts of the resource aluminum to create the chassis of the cars. And which living person would ever want to be compared to things that simply are processed for some output, with clear market value and no human attachment.

Challenges of the role

The problem with seeing tech consultants as resources, is that it limits the value that they bring. It places the person within the existing structure of the company, with no extra added value to them outside of what the role description is. Further, it limits the way they are able to operate within the company as consultants, as operating outside of your role description is then frowned upon. “Why should you spend time on things outside of your specified area? That’s not what we are paying for!”, or something to that extent is usually what comes out of the client if they’re not open to seeing you as more than a resource. And that is their right. If you don’t have the trust and the mandate to work outside of your given tasks, then you probably also shouldn’t.

But with these limits in place we lose much of the benefit that a consultant actually could bring. A consultant usually has experience from many workplaces and cultures, from similar or widely different domains. They see the problems through a completely different set of glasses, meaning their views could be the new angle needed to improve the situation. Further, they’re used to navigating challenging team setups and complicated political landscapes, as many clients before have had challenges that one way or another needed to be solved. Building on this, they usually will have in-depth knowledge on methods that work well, and those that don’t.

Going Above and Beyond

As a consultant at the client, it’s their job to gain the trust in order to take their role from being a resource to becoming something more. When the trust is there, the stage is set to take the value creation to the next level. But what is it that they should do now? With the mandate of the client to take it to the next level, what does that even mean? It means that the consultant now has the opportunity to step out of the bubble created by the role, and look at the environment and system around. Come with input to change malfunctioning processes or proposing new processes to improve the current system. This new role is something I will simply call an Advisor, and they’re someone who, in some ways, are completely different from resources.

Advisor

An Advisor is someone whose value can’t be calculated on paper. They are able to contribute on a variety of issues, proactively detect problems, are trusted with significant responsibility and usually lack a perfect role description. These individuals are let loose in the company and free to move in their own domain, giving them the unique opportunity to contribute where they see fit.

Final Words

I’m not saying that neither is good or bad. And honestly, most of the time I think tech consultants should “just” be resources, making sure that there is a good value creation as planned from the stakeholders and management. But by not allowing the tech consultants to truly bring in all their skills and abilities, the clients lose out on many of the key value points that a consultant brings with them, outside of the base skills that either way are expected.