IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices
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@Dashrender said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Minion-Queen said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Management doesn't understand what IT does. I have seen it happen (and had to fix so many different customers environments), where IT does what they want, spends what they want and management has no idea what it is they do. Then they decided to leave or Management realizes that something fishy is going on, and they are screwed. There is no documentation no one knows the environment, it is a badly done environment. This puts in some level of accountability. Now I know most of you guys and I know you don't try to screw over the company you work for. But it happens WAY too often, sometimes it's not intentional but sometimes it is.
Sure, so the idea of management doing an audit is something I understand and agree with. The fishiness you mentioned is a great reason for management to get involved. But also a sanity check is good on occasion as well. Any good IT team shouldn't be worried about a manager/management who tells them, we are hiring a consultant to just do a sanity check of our network.
Exactly, it shouldn't raise concern at all. The only question would be "what did management see that we, the IT team, didn't?" Ideally, if a consultant is warranted, IT should have brought it up first. Maybe not demanded one, but suggested the idea. If management had to bring it up first, it kind of suggest that IT might have missed something in their planning. Still, no cause for concern, but maybe sit down with management and ask what IT missed - if a consultant is a good idea here, where should we have seen it and requested it earlier? A question like that can make for growth and a good conversation and might highlight a gap in IT planning - or a bad process in management because maybe a consultant isn't really needed in this case.
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I personally always feel that if a consultant is brought in (by managements choice without it being discussed openly) that there is something missing or wrong with the local IT department.
Management has an issue, and they want someone to come in and provide an evaluation.
So which happened, did management bring in the consultant from the blindside. Or did IT request that a consultant come in?
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@DustinB3403 said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
I personally always feel that if a consultant is brought in (by managements choice without it being discussed openly) that there is something missing or wrong with the local IT department.
Management has an issue, and they want someone to come in and provide an evaluation.
So which happened, did management bring in the consultant from the blindside. Or did IT request that a consultant come in?
It sounds like management sat in on some type of class or read an article that told them they need to use an IT consultant. Which is sound advice in the scenarios mentioned, even if your IT department is 100% on top of their game.
He was just wondering why which I believe has been answered.
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@DustinB3403 said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
I personally always feel that if a consultant is brought in (by managements choice without it being discussed openly) that there is something missing or wrong with the local IT department.
Management has an issue, and they want someone to come in and provide an evaluation.
So which happened, did management bring in the consultant from the blindside. Or did IT request that a consultant come in?
That is your own problem, and truly hints that there are problems in how things currently run and you are covering things up.
If you are doing things to the best of your ability, you should not feel threatened by an independent review.
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@JaredBusch said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@DustinB3403 said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
I personally always feel that if a consultant is brought in (by managements choice without it being discussed openly) that there is something missing or wrong with the local IT department.
Management has an issue, and they want someone to come in and provide an evaluation.
So which happened, did management bring in the consultant from the blindside. Or did IT request that a consultant come in?
That is your own problem, and truly hints that there are problems in how things currently run and you are covering things up.
If you are doing things to the best of your ability, you should not feel threatened by an independent review.
It might be a personal issue, I agree there. But to assume that "I'm trying to cover things up" is a stretch.
An independent review by a business that up until being hired hasn't the slightest clue of how the business is configured to me feels like having a random stranger tell you that you're driving your car wrong.
You'd tell them to piss off.
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@DustinB3403 said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
... to me feels like having a
random strangerprofessional driving auditor tell you that you're driving your car wrong.You'd tell them to piss off.
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@DustinB3403 said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
An independent review by a business that up until being hired hasn't the slightest clue of how the business is configured to me feels like having a random stranger tell you that you're driving your car wrong.
I get that. We use Static IPs across a large network. We constantly are told we should move to DHCP, but there are reasons why we can't and once we lay the reasons out it makes sense.
You should be able to explain any abnormal configurations in your network. Sometimes, yes, you have to do things in a way that may not be ideal. As long as you document why and weight out all the options, it shouldn't be a problem. You just have to make sure that if you don't follow best practices, you have a specific reason why.
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@scottalanmiller said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Dashrender said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Breffni-Potter said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Now if IT don't want a consultant and management does want one in the room...there is something going on there which you need to pay attention to. Even if no consultant appears, think about what might happen next.
Interesting - I kinda find this insulting - but at the same time I see your point. The IT team shouldn't be afraid of being audited. But unless the IT team itself says that they don't have the skill set to do a job, it seems more like management doesn't trust their IT team to 'do their job' if the consultant is there for anything more than a audit.
I agree that everyone needs to have someone look over their should from time to time to make sure they didn't do something crazy or loose their way, but to bring in a consultant for a second opinion without your IT team saying they don't feel up to the task - I gotta ask, why are those people working for you?
What's that phrase that management uses..... trust but audit.
This doesn't apply to IT, it applies to everything. It's not insulting, it's actually an indication that management sees IT as a meaningful business function. If they didn't audit, wouldn't that imply that they don't feel that IT matters?
And no matter what internal IT thinks that it knows and can do, there is a value to auditing to find out if outsiders with more and different exposure agree.
I did say that audits are expected and a good thing and IT should welcome it.
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Below is one of our consultant’s sentiments (1st year as a consultant – we are the Guinea pig) and reasoning.
• I want to fully manage the active directory including adding users, printer, and the simplest thing.
• If you remove that of my responsibilities, I can’t guarantee I will be able to help you with outages or issues as I’m not the one managing it. – is this correct? What is the acceptable help I can get from the consultant for issues or outages? -
@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Below is one of our consultant’s sentiments (1st year as a consultant – we are the Guinea pig) and reasoning.
• I want to fully manage the active directory including adding users, printer, and the simplest thing.
• If you remove that of my responsibilities, I can’t guarantee I will be able to help you with outages or issues as I’m not the one managing it. – is this correct? What is the acceptable help I can get from the consultant for issues or outages?So consultant is a VERY general term. It pretty much means "not a reseller" and tons of resellers style themselves as consultants because one sounds cool and technical and the other sounds like you work at Best Buy - so there is a stigma and everyone wants to say "consultant" at neighbourhood parties, even though sales people earn more.
Consultant here sounds like an MSP or an IT oursourcer. Nothing wrong with that, we do that, and he has a point, if he isn't managing things, how can he know what you've done. BUT the issue is, we don't know what his JOB is.
So I work for NTG.... you can...
- Hire us to BE your IT department. If you want guarantees, hell yeah we aren't letting anyone else touch the stuff. You don't get to mention "guarantee" or finger pointing if you let people we don't control do anything at all. That would be insane.
- Hire us to HELP your IT department. We are there to offload work, assist when people get busy, sick or stuck, answer questions, fix things that are broken, etc. You don't get a guarantee, because we aren't the ones to hold accountable. We are there to help the existing people.
Of course he can't guarantee anything. If management asked for a guarantee, then they clearly lack the business skills necessary to interface with any outside contractor. If the consultant brought this up when asked what he needs to be able to help you, he is clearly not prepared to do the work. There is a problem here, but from the outside we can't tell who is the one that has it.
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What does he "want" to manage AD? That's a very basic task. What makes that the task for him to do? Why is the consultant determining which tasks he will do rather than you or management?
As a consultant, I can tell you, we "want" to do as much work as you will give us. We get paid to do work, our goal is to do more of it. We never want "less" work, that would be silly. That's like McDonald's wanting to sell fewer French fries. If we wanted less work, we'd just stop working and go out of business...problem solved with maximum efficiency.
So what the consultant wants is irrelevant and silly to bring up. Sure he wants that. But does he get it?
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@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
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@c00l.ice said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Local IT Team is capable of doing the day to day operations and management needed for all of the below. Where should a consultant fit it?
In our case, we're the local IT team capable of handling day to day operations. We're all generalists because we work for an SMB. We know a fair a bit about most things, but we're not experts. There are times when we need to bring in an expert, and that's where we employ consultants.
It's like when I go and see my local doctor. Most of the time he can fix me. But there are times when he needs to send me to see a consultant at the hospital.
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist. I expect them to be a specialist - expert in their field, but ignorant of most other fields. Just like heart specialist the hospital isn't going to fix my broken leg. So either engage with an IT company that employs a number of different specialists (an Exchange guy, a VMware guy) or I employ a number of different individual companies that focus on one thing.
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@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
Wow he was trying to replace you. A business should always have control of how little or how much an external contractor does. Doesn't matter if it is IT or Accounting or the person who changes the light bulbs.
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@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
Sounds like he's trying to displace you. What will your job be if he is doing all the IT? You're just a bench tech if your only job is to swap out hardware. Is that what management wants you to become?
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@Dashrender said
Interesting - I kinda find this insulting - it seems more like management doesn't trust their IT team to 'do their job' if the consultant is there for anything more than a audit.
Remember the Bobs? They are consultants too...
If management feels a consultant is ever needed, you need to determine the why.
- Is it because removals are on the horizon?
- Has management lost trust in IT? (If so why? Can it be fixed)
- Do they just want to confirm everything is going ok with a second opinion.
Once everyone is on board with why X is happening, the process is a lot better for all.
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Having said that, watching a consultant swapping our entry level GPUs on 2 desktops was a sight to behold.
All consultants are equal but some are more equal than others.
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@Breffni-Potter said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Dashrender said
Interesting - I kinda find this insulting - it seems more like management doesn't trust their IT team to 'do their job' if the consultant is there for anything more than a audit.
Remember the Bobs? They are consultants too...
If management feels a consultant is ever needed, you need to determine the why.
- Is it because removals are on the horizon?
- Has management lost trust in IT? (If so why? Can it be fixed)
- Do they just want to confirm everything is going ok with a second opinion.
Once everyone is on board with why X is happening, the process is a lot better for all.
yep yep. This was mainly what I was driving at with the insult part above.
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@Carnival-Boy said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@c00l.ice said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Local IT Team is capable of doing the day to day operations and management needed for all of the below. Where should a consultant fit it?
In our case, we're the local IT team capable of handling day to day operations. We're all generalists because we work for an SMB. We know a fair a bit about most things, but we're not experts. There are times when we need to bring in an expert, and that's where we employ consultants.
It's like when I go and see my local doctor. Most of the time he can fix me. But there are times when he needs to send me to see a consultant at the hospital.
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist. I expect them to be a specialist - expert in their field, but ignorant of most other fields. Just like heart specialist the hospital isn't going to fix my broken leg. So either engage with an IT company that employs a number of different specialists (an Exchange guy, a VMware guy) or I employ a number of different individual companies that focus on one thing.
So basically, you contact a specialist consultant based on your requirements. That's better, because here the consultant contact the vendor so if we have issue with the firewall we need to pass the consultant first before contacting the vendor for firewall.
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@AshKetchum said
So basically, you contact a specialist consultant based on your requirements. That's better, because here the consultant contact the vendor so if we have issue with the firewall we need to pass the consultant first before contacting the vendor for firewall.
That's not a consultant.
That's a reseller pretending to be a consultant.
