[Sigia-l] Finding and Choosing a Consultant

[Ziya Oz]

Arthur Fink:

> a good solution to your problem

Bingo. The PROBLEM.

Framing the problem is everything.

Sometimes one knows what the problem is, and can thus generate an RFP, as
was suggested. But often, one doesn't know enough to frame the problem. So
one asks a consultant to define/frame the problem to begin with. If you skip
this stage you have a much better than 90% chance of failure.

I've been doing surgery on multi-million dollar projects that have failed
for the longest time. I can say without hesitation that the biggest common
denominator has been the mis-framing of the problem. I don't mean the scope
or the specs. I mean the fundamental framing of the problem: why are we
redesigning this site, for example? The answer to that question cannot be a
list of half dozen items. There's almost always a higher level reason that
frames everything else. You miss that, nothing else downstream matters much
in the end.

So I'd urge you to not generate an RFP, unless you are absolutely convinced
that you have fully understood the issues and can indeed frame the problem.
Otherwise, you should get a consultant do that for you in an engagement
whose sole/narrow purpose is to identify/frame/refine the problem. Once you
know that, creating an RFP is that much simpler and infinitely more
meaningful.

----
Ziya

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted,
they would have asked for a faster horse." -- Henry Ford