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Why Do Consulting + Testing Often Equal Disaster? | Part 1

What are the challenges in providing consulting services nowadays? And how can they be overcome? In the first part of our blog series, let's discuss these questions.

Our goal with this blog series

As consulting and software testing are two broad fields with various topics to talk about, we have decided to start a blog series in which we would like to present different opinions regarding these two areas.

We want to shed light on specific subjects for our stakeholders and ourselves as well. Together, we will gather ideas on how to make today’s digital world a future-proof and efficient place. So, make sure you don’t miss our next blog posts!

Now, without further ado, let’s jump right into the first part of our discussion: consulting services and firms.

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Interview with an experienced professional

Laszlo Frantz has years of broad experience in the fields of consulting and testing – ranging from tester to test/QA lead to CEO of a consulting company. For this series, we asked him to tackle the topic of “Why do consulting and testing often lead to disaster?”.

QUESTION 1

“As a test/QA lead, you have worked with several consulting firms on your projects. What were the challenges you had to face?”

Answer: “Let me ask you a quick counter question: Would you buy a science book that barely shows any content on its pages, but has a pretty cover? Probably not, because you would want this book to help you with whatever you are doing, right? The beautiful cover is secondary. Now, we can project that quite well onto consultants.

Unfortunately, many consulting firms seem to care more about their employees’ public appearance than anything else. This is called body-leasing. What these enterprises often miss is that:

Knowledge-leasing builds trust, while body-leasing destroys it.

People need expertise and not various professionals who lack the technical know-how needed to overcome the challenges of modern projects. Consulting companies should definitely start investing time and money into proper training for their employees – or at least take care to fully onboard them. Don’t be afraid to take this step, because it will surely show great results in the future.

Education is an investment.

The digital world is constantly changing and unfortunately, it does not wait for anyone. So, consultants and their employers should make sure to keep up with today’s business demands.

On this basis, we have created the nextpertis Academy. There, we have built bulletproof programs to bring our employees to a high-professional level, which we now want to open for external access. In case you want to learn more about them, please contact us.”

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QUESTION 2

“What would be the outcome if affected consulting firms refused to take any action?”

Answer: “This could end very badly. If consulting firms keep switching their employees – constantly adding new people to the project and dropping others out – this might cause loss of trust from stakeholders. Therefore, most customers would probably end the cooperation as soon as possible and then never return for another project. If you seek long-lasting success for your business, this is something you want to avoid.

You need to be aware that the process also leads to increased costs and time for your customers. Consulting isn’t cheap. Dragging out the process would only cause the customer to not being able to finance it at some point.

Don’t wait for solutions. Start acting now!

I highly doubt that there will be a day when the solution to overcome your challenges will suddenly fall into your lap. But, I can give some advice for starting the change.

First, start scheduling an onboarding plan. Of course, this doesn’t develop in a day, so take your time with it. If you need a little push, don’t hesitate to come through and talk to us, as we have already paved the road.

Secondly, it’s a good idea to always think about improving your internal communication. Even though there might not be tough obstacles to overcome, there is always a little room for improvement. And you won’t believe how much of an impact internal communication has on business performance. It is, in fact, crucial.”

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QUESTION 3

“So, retrospectively speaking, would you say consulting services are worth to be considered in projects?”

Answer: “Definitely. Consulting services, in the meaning of transferring high-valuable skills and know-how, bring great value and I recommend them to everyone who wants to realize an idea, but lacks resources.

Keep in mind that consultants should operate business-oriented and aim to provide maximum efficiency instead of generating sales. Don’t be afraid to take a step and train your consultants if needed. The digital age is constantly growing, and so are its needs. Modern enterprises need to go with the flow to stay relevant in the market.

And you know what they say: quality over quantity.”


Part 2: Shed light on testing

If you want to know how the interview went on and learn more about why testing is often seen as bottleneck, check out our part 2!

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