Yes, I remember the post and the discussion which followed. I’m not here to convince anyone that hiring a consultant or coach is always a way to go. What more I share the opinion that having an expert in-house works better than hiring her just for a while with a task to sort things out for the organization.

Having said that, I see more and more teams failing with their efforts to improve the way they work. And I don’t mean here implementing agile only. Why do they fail? In most cases I don’t know these teams well enough to be able to say. However in quite a few cases I think some respected outsider would help them much in terms of initiating and sustaining changes.

Of course we touch the notion of “respected outsider” which is where the risk is. It will differ among teams. But that’s exactly why I wrote that hiring a consultant or coach is a tricky thing. You don’t have to live with them forever but most companies, which hire consultants, don’t care much about quality of selection process.

That’s the argument coldfusion brought. But my answer remains the same – in vast majority of cases companies put way more attention to verify a candidate for an employee while very little attention to verify the quality of a consultant, coach or trainer.

It is so probably because everyone thinks that it is easy to fire a consultant. What more, in vast majority of cases while the consultant gets the deal hardly anyone cares about verification of their job.

Regarding your arguments, I agree with all of them except one – “Hiring consultant is tricky”. Hiring anybody and especially an employee is tricky. With a consultant the risk is lower – you can terminate the collaboration much easier than with an employee.

And yes… I would hire consultants from time to time, especially to bring some fresh blood/opinions/views into the organization.

At some point, even the most experienced organizations/teams would benefit from getting exposed to different approaches.

You’re right. And it’s more difficult to fire an employee than to fire a consultant, isn’t it? But when managers hire an employee they usually think that way. “If I choose the wrong person it will be waste of money.”

Now with consultants, coaches or trainers managers usually don’t use the same approach. “After all it is temporary contract. And the guy has The Name. And others pay him as well. So he can’t be anything but great.”

It’s all about the process we use to hire employees and outsiders for short-term gigs. It is way more strict in the former case than in the latter.

Yes, I’ve pointed it. Actually I think it is connected with strength of leadership. If there’s a great leader in the organization it is their job to pick these ideas from insiders and promote them.

If there’s weak leadership it is sometimes easier to hire overpriced guy to tell you what your team already knows. Surprisingly often the same will reach right ears then.

Don’t forget the benefit of hearing someone because they are an outsider.

How many times do internal regular team members have great insight which is ignored, but the $500 an hour guys who says the same things gets traction.

I’ve seen standard consulting jobs where just a couple of days was enough to point some sources of problems companies had. If insiders lack knowledge, which unfortunately isn’t uncommon, it becomes more about sharing it than about learning the organization in details.

It is the other way around when the knowledge is already in place but somehow problems don’t want to disappear. The the focus should be set at learning all the specifics of a team/company. Otherwise money paid to consultant would be wasted.

One more thought … I don’t think it has to be full-time job but also I don’t see how anyone can get good grasp of the situation/process within a few hours.