Consultants are very much a part of Information Technology. There are consultants available for every part of your technology or information systems. These individuals range in skill from true experts with no one single person more skilled in their trade. While towards the bottom we get to people who really are just milking ignorance. A certain amount of honor is needed in the consulting world, mostly on the consultants part. Usually I see consultants who are average, by this I mean they have roughly the same skill in their area as their peers do. This is usually confirmed by my peers and sometimes even the consultant themselves.
Consultants do not need always to be smarter or more of an expert in their field compared to the customers own resources. Often enough they only need to be a second set of eyes, or maybe a third party with an opinion, or even just have an impartial opinion. Having a consultant give an opinion can be beneficial for the customer only when the consultant is honest. If a consultant gives an opinion based on the idea they will benefit from it, it is worthless. It is also worthless if it is an uneducated opinion. Now I said they do not need to be experts and this is true, however they need not lie in order to “sound like an expert”. Giving false information is bad for the business who hired the consultant. My philosophy is if you do not know then let the customer know you are not sure but will find the correct answer. It’s very unprofessional to ramble off an answer to move past the question or worse yet, blame it on someone else or some other technology.
Far to often it seems people in information technology forget that we are constantly learning. That is what makes technology great, it is always changing. You cannot be expected to know everything. You are expected to learn. A value you should have in addition to the ambition to learn is honesty. A consultant who abuses the fact that the customer is learning and then directs the customer on an incorrect path to appear better than they are should not be a consultant.
As a customer you have to be on the look out for these frauds. Information given to you by a consultant can usually be confirmed using the internet. I’m not suggesting you check everything word for word. However if you question anything a consultant tells you, you owe it to yourself and your company to learn the correct answer.
Good consultants are an excellent resource to many business units. I use consultants all of the time. However I ask for my consultants by name and the unprofessional ones do not come out to my location again. As we all continue to learn, it is important to remain professional.
