adam bien's blog

The VooDoo consulting style 📎

I'm working often together with "experts" from different consulting companies. It seems like they follow a common strategy (I call it VooDoo) during the consulting activities:
  1. Never say "I don't know". In case you have no idea about a certain technology, just use generic terms like "SOA", "Web 2.0" , "loose coupling" to explain how it works.
  2. Regardless what standards your customer follows, just suggest the opposite for the realization e.g. in case RoR is the standard: suggest Java EE, in case Java EE is used than suggest Spring.
  3. Concentrate on sofskills, never answer questions directly. Prefer meetings, telcos or videoconferences rather than answering question per email.
  4. Always reinvent the wheel.
  5. Do not follow common standards - try to build unmaintainable systems. It is more likely then, that you contract will be extended.
  6. Try to influence other projects or better: try to take over the world.
  7. Always use the CoS (Cover Your Ass) strategy, regardless how expensive this really is for you customer. Prefer "Green Bars" rather than satisified customers and running systems. Try to "hide" behind CMMI, RUP, or XP-manifesto - it is really convenient.
It is easy to identify a VooDoo consultant. Just ask the question: "Why your decided this way?". In case he answers: "Because it is cool" or "This is the way to do it", or "Everyone is using this framework" you are working with one of them :-).