Why not? It's like a 6 month paid job search.
You can tell people they're responsible until you're blue in the face, but unless they take that responsibility, the failure of the system due to shoddy data will be blamed on the core implementation team.
I'm part of a team in the final stages of a small scale ERP rollout (very small company that had an accounting and inventory nightmare on it's hands) using a Salesforce.com addon called Glovia. I was astounded at the blank stares I would get from people when I would ask for information or assign tasks, everybody just expects systems like to work without input from the business owners. It's a computer, it's supposed to make things easier, right? What's with all this "work" you want them to do?
Companies always turn to shit when they go public. They'll fire their best people to cut costs and pad the bottom line. They forget that companies are supposed to make and sell things. How is your engineering firm supposed to get large contracts if you've just fired all of your senior engineers? That's like selling your car to raise cash. Then you realize you can't get to work because you have no way of getting to work, so you quit your job as well. Who cares if you don't have a job. That's next quarter! This quarter looks great because we sold all of our productive assets! We have so much cash on the balance sheet!
That's very true, but I will say this about my customer -- they acknowledge their own lack of participation and involvement as the major causes of problems in the projects we've done. They aren't throwing us under the bus, thankfully, but our boneheaded PM should be a little more forceful IMO. They're getting billed hundreds of additional hours to update applications already in production simply because the users would not take a couple of hours to properly test and validate that the application works as intended. In one project, the business users will tell you "We want item A to be blue," it will roll to production, and then 3 weeks later, they'll scream they want item A to be red. What's REALLY bad is that it isn't like we give them the application URL and say "Test and let us know what happens!"; we give them extensive instructions and testing scripts to walk through and they still can't manage.
We just had the engineering department request a tool that retroactively modifies items because they don't want to do validation before go-live. If they wanted to do a proper validation without the tool it would take ~100 hours. The tool would only save about 20 of those hours. It would take the development team over double that to design and implement the custom solution solution. Management favors the engineering department approach because they don't understand the software development life cycle or how IT works in general.
We just had the engineering department request a tool that retroactively modifies items because they don't want to do validation before go-live. If they wanted to do a proper validation without the tool it would take ~100 hours. The tool would only save about 20 of those hours. It would take the development team over double that to design and implement the custom solution solution. Management favors the engineering department approach because they don't understand the software development life cycle or how IT works in general.
Consulting is where it's at. I can never go back to regular IT work.
Nearly twice the pay of traditional IT without the politics? Get to work for a client for weeks/months then leave? Project work only, very little break/fix? Never on call?
Yes fucking please.
Now I sit in a chair, I can take my time, do things right. I get a budget and I get teamwork. It's a nice gig.
I did the consulting gig. I found it full of sales promising things I can't deliver and being hung out to dry when I looked for support of my management. I found a group of guys half assing their way through work and leaving companies in a bind. On top of that I put 40k miles on my car and was overbooked with a constant stress to get things done in less hours that quoted so we can make a profit on our fixed fee work.
No thanks.
Now I sit in a chair, I can take my time, do things right. I get a budget and I get teamwork. It's a nice gig.
This.
I have a phone interview later today, but I am not excited about it -- at all. It is a staff position and after working as a consultant from home the last 2 years, it is tough to get excited about going to work every day and dealing with politics. I'm hoping my current consulting gig (I'm basically an independent contractor) is extended or even made permanent, but I won't know that for 1-2 months, minimum.
Oh well, the phone interview will be good practice.
Is it where I think it is? Are you applying for a SharePoint infrastructure position?
You probably just described 80% of businesses. Public, private, or otherwise.
But, but, but, CEO's are always worth their exorbitant salaries because of the value they bring to companies. They make more money so, they obviously know better than you.