So, you’re thinking about hiring consultants …

There are plenty of things to consider when deciding to bring in outside help to your organization. Consultants bring several benefits and can help address challenges for your team.

• Specialization: There may be a need for specialized tooling or work on a subsystem that requires skills outside of organization.

• Understaffed teams: Teams are often stretched too thin, and may not have the core competencies to accomplish the project goals.  

• Budget constraints: Limited budgets may not allow for an FTE, and oftentimes consultants are the more cost-effective option.

• Project-specific needs: Accelerated timelines may require faster more targeted solutions, or the workload does not justify an FTE.

• Internal team limitations: Misalignment of skill sets and experience for the project needs.
• Flexibility: Can bring in specialized competencies at will.

While bringing in consultants and contractors provides help with productivity and budget constraints, there are limitations and challenges as well:

• Management burden: Significant time must be utilized to manage requirements and maintain progress with the external team.

• Rigid requirements: Poorly defined specs or missed details will lead to incomplete work.

• Budget and timeline overruns: Fluid requirements, or churn in the code will escalate costs and delay delivery.

• Ownership and knowledge transfer: Risk of dependency on the contractor at the conclusion of the project. Who owns the IP after the work is done?

• Communication: Effort is required to maintain communication channels, especially if the contractors are in a different timezone.

• Variable quality: Not all contractors are made the same, and oftentimes firms will rotate resources without notice.
• Accountability: Since they are not permanent employees, prioritizing quality and scalability may take a backseat to timely implementation, resulting in brittle code.

Suffice it to say, managing contract work is a second full-time job (who has time for that?). However, the benefits do outweigh the cost, especially when taking the time to find the consulting firm that is the right fit for your team.

As we made the decision to start this company, we really thought about that last part – “the right fit” – and found that this was the ethos we wanted to carry forward. Past experience has shown us that taking the time to find the relationship that works best for the team pays off in dividends. At the end of the day, our mindset is that we are here to support your team, not the other way around.

We decided to focus primarily on helping people deliver products effectively and efficiently, and let our “bottom-line” take a backseat (seriously!). This means that we approach projects by starting where you are, being flexible, and only taking as much time as is needed to solve your problem. We’d rather take an incremental approach and rapidly deliver software that can be used immediately, even if it is not ‘feature’ complete. If it helps you move forward with R&D and characterization while you grow your business, we’re happy to deliver it.

We want to help, let us know how we can!