You will find the charlatans, the ones who call themselves consultants who are simply after the billable hours and that's probably the majority, certainly, of the independents agreeing to take on this role. When we go about setting fees, we look at the level of risk and accountability that the client is asking us to take on in an engagement. The very same people can be involved in a project at a higher rate per hour because we are taking on more risk and responsibility and because we are providing more value to the client. And it is not a function of age and work experience, it's a function of the degree of risk and accountability that the consulting organization maintains. There's an economic reality behind the use of methodologies that Dyle doesn't address in his column.
Buyers exert downward pressure on consulting fees.
And if price were no object, you would need less rigorous methodologies because you would staff projects only with highly experienced, highly compensated people. Economically, that doesn't work. There aren't that many highly experienced people out there in the world, and clients aren't willing to pay the price for them. One of the things methodology provides is a consistent, repeatable way of going through a project. It's not simply to provide a way for unseasoned people to do the work.