The second most important success factor for a consultant at an assignment is facilitating ownership of the work they have done. It is also the hardest and that gets the least attention. It is also something the consultant cannot do entirely on its own.
There are mainly two types of consulting done in IT: expert consulting and manpower consulting. I have heard them being called in different ways, but the idea is that in the first one the expertise is the most important quality of the consultant(s), while in the second the quantity of consultants is more important (expertise also matters, but it is less important). Regardless of the type of consulting, consultants do some kind of work and they go. Most of the times, their work has to be continued and supported by the internal employees after they are gone. That can only happen if the internal employees feel that they own that work.
No handovers
The most common way for an assignment to end is with some kind of handovers or knowledge transfers. The problem with any of these things is that they only achieve some kind of transfer between the consultant and the internal team. Transfer of knowledge. The interesting thing about knowledge is that it is not very useful if it is not internalized. The difference between knowledge transfer and learning is a transformation and that transformation happens through some kind of internalizing of knowledge. Without learning, the information is stored somewhere, but you are not aware when to access it or how to use it. It’s just lying there and you know it exists and what is it broadly about.
Which is why handovers in this line of work are simply the cheap and quick alternative. They don’t get you very far and there is a big chance all the work the consultant did will go to the proverbial toilet.
Expendable
A worthy ideal for a consultant is to aim to be expendable every day. That means that however they do the work it should be somehow internalized by the internal team as they go. This also means most of the time that the bespoke work has to be done actively together with the internal team.
Furthermore, the consultant should aim to ensure they are an active agent in spreading the knowledge and facilitating internalization. This takes more time than just doing the work and be done with it. This means less doing the actual work and more facilitating the work to happen in a team context.
Wouldn’t this get you fired?
I joke that “being fired” is part of the job description of a consultant. That is a risk, but it also an expected risk, which is why consultants are more expensive. Some might decide to mitigate this risk by hoarding knowledge in an attempt to increase dependency on them and extend the assignment as much as possible.
That’s an understandable approach, but in this case, an assignment is considered successful not by the value delivered, but by its length in time and income it brings. Nothing wrong with that, just that I don’t see it as the most meaningful way of consulting.
At the same time, if the consultant aims to be expendable, it doesn’t mean they will actually be fired or that the assignment will be short.
P.S._ The most important success factor for a consultant is to get the work done. But without ownership, the success is still far from being guaranteed._
P.P.S._ Everything here is only from the perspective of consultant. There is much to be said about the perspective of the company hiring the consultant, but maybe in another post._