Posted by Rob on December 01, 2001 at 14:28:55:

In Reply to: Finding Good IT Consulting posted by Greg Toth on November 16, 2001 at 13:49:36:

Greg

The answer is that you don't know what you are getting till you get it. Yes, every 3rd party you involve with your strategy brings along the risk of them screwing it up for your company. On the other hand, you guys probably have the brains to hire a single top-calibre consultant to facilitate your strategy for yourselves.

Basically, you formulate it with the assistance (note the role here) of such a person who would structure your input into a coherent format and plan.

If you don't like the end-result strategy, then YOU change it. Some informal research would help prepare the participants for the sessions. Those who can't find the time to do their allocated research, should rather not be on the strategy-formulation team. You'll be surprised how many strategic thinkers lurk within an organization of 200 people. Statistically, you should have at least in the region of 4 - 8 naturally endowned strategic thinkers. You may find them in the oddest of places though.

Ask around for people who are unusually interested in strategic material or who might use the word strategy a lot. Prefer those who have actually drafted strategies of some kind, even though those strategies may never have been published.

As for outsourcing your functionality? It is quite impossible to outsource functionality without outsourcing control. Functionality is the essence of process, and by outsourcing your processes you lose all strategic control over it, and you'll pay top dollar for every change you make to these processes, especially once they reside on an ASP.

My catspit in a tin hat, but the hat has been around for a while. :-)

All the best,

Rob

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