Consultants: It's Like Going to the Doctor

A lot of groups hire technical consultants for $75.00-$150.00 an hour. They take recommendations from these consultants without having the capacity to understand the recommendations that they were given. A group would never hand over this type of responsibility in the rest of their work. It is an organization's responsibility to develop enough technical skills to determine whether their consultant is making reasonable recommendations.

It is like going to the doctor, and having the doctor tell you that you need open heart surgery, and you saying, "Well okay then, open me up!" without getting a second opinion, or researching other viable alternatives. The organization needs to do its homework, and make sure what the consultant says makes sense. The organization needs to be aware of the potential alternatives to what the consultant suggests as well. People need to know the basics of their computers.

There was a group that we ran into that had a consultant, two different sites and 30 computers. The consultant was only available to them on occasion. They literally had computers in unopened boxes on the floor of their office for weeks. They couldn't even get the machines up and running without the aid of a consultant. Once their consultant came to assist them, he set up everything in a non-standard fashion, and so no one could figure out how to solve simple problems. He had the printer set up in a non-standard way, and so whenever there was a minor printer problem, the organization had to call him in at $75.00 an hour. Eventually they got rid of the consultant, and had someone in-house learn about simple trouble shooting by taking a class.

Consultants are important for initial networking and for high-level problems and major changes, but for small problems, it is usually better for the staff to learn the basics of their computers.