I don’t intend to offend anyone with this statement, but I do not like to use consulting firms. I believe that as a CIO, it is incumbent on me to know how the business of my internal customers works so that I can help bring them the right technology solutions. I have witnessed way too many scenarios where CIOs have brought in consulting firms to tell them how to do their job. If I need to bring in consultants to do this for me, then why on earth am I a CIO? I could tell you that if my employees had to bring in consultants to tell them how to do their jobs, I would instead get new employees.
Knowing what my customer needs allows me to select the right technologies, the right staff, and the insight on how to best organize my department. I can analyze my department for functions that have little or no value and eliminate them so that we can use the funding to bring value to the government I am passionate about serving.
I tell you this, not to convince you not to use consulting firms, but to help you understand how and why I use consulting firms to both have successful projects, and to be the best CIO that I can be.
To be successful, the entire customer organization must understand what is happening and why it is happening
There are multiple opportunities to hire consulting firms and achieve highly successful projects. Many tasks faced by government CIOs such, as designing ERP systems and performing detailed business analysis, are simply beyond the skill sets and time available to a CIO and must be purchased. Reputable consulting firms can be depended on to perform such tasks without needing a lot of limited time that government IT staffs have available to spend.
Six key activities must be performed for engagements with consulting firms to be as successful as possible. These must be a clearly defined Statement of Work (SOW) so that the consulting firm knows what is expected of them.
First, the CIO and leadership of the customer must have the same goal. That goal must be well defined, well understood, and communicated to their staff. Having differences in goals, or not communicating their goals, will only lead to problems down the road, and likely a failed project. When the consulting firm is engaged, a consistent message is a must.
Second, the CIO needs to understand where the gaps are in their own team’s knowledge. The gaps could be in specific department operations or experience with the technologies that serve this customer. The CIO and their staff may have a general understanding of their customer's operations, but software selection often requires a much more detailed look at the department’s processes. The consulting firm will need a clear understanding of this gap so that it can craft an SOW that can bridge that gap.
Third, the discovery sessions that are used to create the SOW must be thorough. The CIO’s team, the customer’s subject matter experts, and the consulting firm must be brought together for this task. The goal of this activity is to allow the consulting firm to explore what knowledge is available in the organization for the consulting firm to gather. Organizations typically have reasons they perform the processes the way they do. Sometimes it is a bad reason, such as a manager from a decade ago wanting this report, and sometimes for good reasons, such as the data output is required to be reported by law.
Fourth, all work done by a consulting firm needs to be approved. This will keep the activities of the consulting firm focused on the value-added needs. For example, during the discovery sessions, it may be determined that both the timekeeping system and benefits management system are deficient and need to be investigated. It is up to the CIO and customer leadership to determine if the consulting firm needs to spend their time (and their time is expensive) on one, both, or neither. Allowing the consulting firm to explore these rabbit holes will rapidly destroy a project’s budget.
Fifth is documentation and training materials. One of the biggest problems I see is when a consulting firm is brought in, they do the work and then leave without sufficient documentation and training. The Information Technology staff must manage the solution, and then go and figure it out when it breaks or bring the consulting firm back. These are bad outcomes. The training delivered must be persistent. In-person training is nice, but if the person trained leaves, the investment in this technology is in jeopardy. Training documentation and training videos should be required. If in-person training is done, that training must be recorded and made available to other IT staff.
I have saved the most important for last. The single greatest risk that I have with government projects is the lack of organizational change management. The implementation of a new process or new technology is disruptive to the customer organization. To be successful, the entire customer organization must understand what is happening and why it is happening. They must feel they are part of the solution and that this change will enhance the value they bring.
In closing, government consulting firms can be leveraged successfully by a CIO but should never take the place of the judgement of a CIO. The CIO must view these firms as tools in the toolbox that can be used to propel the organization forward.
