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Originally published at Internet.comConsulting appeals to those who want to make a difference, or who want independence or more money. Or all of the above.
For the purposes of this article we consider independent consulting, but most of the article applies equally to those who prefer to stay safely in the embrace of paid employment as a consultant for a company (always known on business cards as a "Senior" or "Principal" Consultant).
Mostly though, consulting offers the dream of breaking free, of ttjasi (telling them to Take This Job and Shove It). And it delivers that, to those suited to it.
The IT industry has several attributes that make it attractive to work for yourself:
* Shortage of skilled people - a seller's market. There are high overall levels of under-employment (vacancies) in the IT industry. There are also many specialist niches where experience in some esoteric technology or process gives you a unique business value. Some of these niches are generated by new trends, e.g. Web 2.0 developer or ITIL Change Manager, and others by the opposite process - the aging workforce and legacy technologies, e.g. Cobol programmer or CICS systems programmer.
* This shortage leads to high hourly rates of pay. On contract you can make in a few months what the average full-time worker earns in a year. You can either make a lot of money or take a lot of time off, depending on your approach and priorities.
* Low requirements for qualification or certification. To build a bridge you must have the appropriate engineering registration, which in turn requires qualification, certification, experience and recognition. In IT we will give anyone a go. A piece of paper helps sometimes, but experience counts for much more. Even experience is not essential, so long as you have the chutzpah to stand up and say you know the way.
* High levels of on-the-job training by employers. Compared to other industries, IT employers of full-time staff are willing to pay for a lot of training. If training is useful or certification is desirable for your planned consulting career, it is often possible to get all the training you need while still in full-time employment.
* High levels of change, especially projects. Consulting thrives on change. Change introduces uncertainty and people look for answers. Change introduces peaks in workload, so temporary additional resources are required. And projects release funds, which consultants are happy to mop up.
As a result, anyone working in IT is usually well-paid and has useful knowledge, which puts us in good shape to consider self-employment. Whatever you choose to do, you need three assets:
* A strong financial position. There may well be a dip in income as you establish yourself. And there is always the risk, however small, that it just won't work. IT people tend to have lower debt levels and more financial reserves to help justify the risk and weather the initial impact.
* A unique business value: an uncommon area of knowledge and experience.
* Basic business knowledge. You run a business now, so you have to be able to cope with accounting, cash flow, record-keeping and compliance.
There are a number of options open to you to work for yourself in IT. Ignoring some of the more esoteric ones such as developing a software product or launching a website or writing, there are two main sectors; consulting and contracting. People often confuse the two because consultants usually work to contracts.
In the generally understood IT usage of "contractor", this is someone who provides labor on contract, to fill a role that would otherwise require a full-time employee to do it, either because a full-timer cannot be found, or there is a short-term requirement, or management are hiding the headcount in op-ex.
You can do very well as a contractor if you have a skill that is in short supply. A friend of mine went into a DBA position for three months at a small regional bank running an unusual mainframe database. He was still on contract rates a decade later (though they often begged him to go full-time). Eventually the party ended when the bank finally got swallowed and the systems absorbed, but by then he was all set for retirement.
"Consultants", on the other hand, sell information, not labor. They draw on intellectual property that the organization does not have in order to provide planning, advice, opinion or review.
(To go back to full-time employed consultants for a moment, "consultant" is often misused by large firms to refer to "engineer" or even "technician". Consultants don't build things and they don't fix things. The lines are blurred, of course, but the word "consultant" appears on the business card of many who most clearly are not.)
Consulting is an altogether different game to contracting, and it requires a greater skill-set. In addition to some intellectual property that differentiates you, you also need to be good at many or all of the following:
* Communication. Only some IT people know how to write a recommendation paper, to facilitate a meeting/workshop, to explain themselves clearly, to frame an email to get the desired result. Given that IT people tend to be well above average intelligence, this common weakness used to mystify me. I think now that it comes because of the lack of formal qualification. Smart people who never went to university can carve a path for themselves anyway in IT, but they do not learn these essential skills. Either that or it is a condemnation of our education systems. Come to think of it that is probably closer to the mark.
* Knowledge. Even fewer people know how to research, to interview and investigate, to organize information, to abstract and summarize. For why this might be, see "Communication".
* Politics. And very few IT people indeed know how to play the game, to read the political winds, to understand power, to influence results. One of my best business teachers, Art Jacobs, said there are three kinds of people: an inner circle who makes things happen by playing politics, a ring around them of people who choose not to participate but make sure they watch what is happening, and an outer group who exclaim "what the **** happened?". That outer group is very large in IT. Effective consultants can survive in the second ring but the real shakers and movers get into the inner circle.
* Common sense. From some of the outputs we see from consultants, it seems this is not essential, or common. But the really good consultants have the ability to cut to the chase, identify the basic issues, and come up with workable pragmatic ideas or solutions without being purists or impossible dreamers.
* Work ethic. Good consultants work hard, like to set things right, pay attention to detail, and stick at it until they get a result.
* Relationships. Consultants have to use networks, gain trust, get agreement and support, make people do things, and change minds. IT is full of misanthropes who prefer not to interact with fellow humans. This is great because it makes good consultants scarce.
Assuming you have got this far, there are some specialized skills required as a consultant - the tools of the trade. Ensure you already have most of the following skills, or go out and acquire them:
* Selling. Even with the current shortages, work does not just jump in the door. You must generate pipeline, follow up leads, and close deals. The product you are selling is yourself, so know how to do this: market yourself, present yourself well, instill confidence, look for opportunities.
* Cultural change. Much of what consultants do is effecting change. There is a formal body of knowledge around how you do this, and recognized techniques for making it happen.
* Teaching. Most people think they are good at passing concepts to other adults. Most are awful. Learn how to teach adults properly.
* Specialized consulting techniques. There are dozens of techniques for facilitating, analysis, problem solving and other consulting activities. These include root cause analysis, causal chain, cause and effect, fishbone diagrams, why-how maps, Pareto charts, Boston matrix, six serving men, affinity diagrams, clustering, rich pictures, force field analysis, Mind Mapping, spider diagrams, SCOTSMAN, SWOT/PEST, hurdling and ranking, voting, weighting, sorting by importance, brainstorming, nominal group, Six Thinking Hats...
If you have the foundation abilities in communication, politics, and so on, and you have acquired the specialist skills for the consultant's tool bag, then you can sally forth to make a difference for your clients and make money along the way.
Rob England is an IT industry writer and consultant. He takes an interest in professional development, including creating the www.ttjasi.com website for those who want to change jobs. He lives in a small house in a small village in a small country far away.
Author: Rob England
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