Ask HN: Large IT project consulting approach

I've spent time on the opposite side of the fence as someone who buys and manages enterprise IT solutions.

Process maps even at a high level are a good start to decide where you can add value in the quickest way. But make sure you question the business process and whether it's effective before just implementing technology around it.

In terms of project management, something like the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFE) will work in an enterprise environment if you're from an agile background. Minimum Viable Products work well in enterprises but it's often a huge mindshift for enterprise customers who think they need every feature.

Charging by day rate is your best option. Enterprise IT projects will generally overrun and scopes will increase. If you're charging by day, you're protected from scope creep.

Make sure you've documented what you're doing clearly and you've got a strong contract. If I need to challenge an IT supplier over what's been implemented, and I often do, the contract is the first place I started. A good contract and clear expectations is a positive thing for both parties.

"Quite a bit of engineering?" (in something other than the software sense?)

Perhaps a phone call is a better way to sort this but I'll give it a try. If you want to get on the phone let me know, I'll rope in our business guy, between the two of us we got this.

Consultants come in two flavors, they can be just like employees but they get the crap work, or they are domain experts.

If you are going to be a 1099 "employee" you need to be aware that you are paying all the extras: social security, payroll tax, health insurance. I believe all the extras are about 30% but it varies based on your income.

Charging, I'd go time and materials almost every time. Stuff like this is hard to price, you just don't know how long it will take. So take whatever you think is a reasonable salary and I'd double it. Gutsy but see if they go for it. If you are good they will pay.

Good luck!

It’s hard to give concrete answers without understandimg the business context but here are a couple of ideas to think about

1/ If you can’t scope work yet propose a discovery phase in which you’ll do whatever you think is needed to get to a scope of work. More importantly in this phase work out the ROI for their business of doing the work. You should be able to bid this fixed price - 3 of you for x weeks/months.

2/ Day rate consulting is safe but you may not be able to capture a fair share of the value you create. Pricing based on a percentage of their ROI over 3 to 5 years may get you a better deal.

At the end of the day what you are doing right now is sales. The companies budgets, your competition, how they like to work etc will all be big drivers of how you can operate. Make sure you understand all that.

Some communication from said company quoted below. Not sure if I'm missing any gotchas, given my relative inexperience in this sort of stuff.

"Let's break down your deliverables.. I want us to properly define my problem, current and future needs.

Then we review what's available in the market to see if it suits our needs.. finally, if we decide to develop our own software then we do"

I help companies set up and execute these kinds of things. Shoot me an email if you'd like to chat. Happy to give you a bit of free advice if it can help any.

Probably best bet would be to try and hire someone from a prof consulting firm specializing in IT consulting

Ive been involved in IT auditing and consulting for 13 years and through my experience, there is definitely a methodology that can be utilised or tailored to suite the clients environment, here are just a few high level pointers 1) Its important to initially gain an understanding of the business so yes as youve stated that would be a good starting point, document the entire business process so itl provide a clear picture of the business operations. - Arrange a workshop with key client representatives, together with the client decide on the business processes/sub-processes that the client would like to have automated and the ones that will remain manual - Your professional judgement and advise would be key here - Once decided on the automated processes, put together a functional specification which will detail the system requirements or what will be required from the potential software system to be implemented. - If you know of suitable Off-the-shelf software options to suite the requirements of the func spec then highlight them to the client as suitable options or you could put out a tender inviting potential software companies to market their software product to the client, motivating how their system will meet the requirements detailed in the func spec.

That would be a good starting point

2) You could either charge a rate per hour or divide the solution as a phased approach and charge a fee per phase

Hope this helps :)

Based on my experience in IT consulting for large corporations, it's essential to have a high-level plan that outlines the work being done, the time it will take, the resources and the cost. On-going communication is an important element to maintaining a good relationship.

For pricing, we used hourly rates and we estimated it based on a costing tool for typical projects. However, since you're new, I'd say to come up with your best estimate and then add additional hours for any unknowns. Communicate that this is only an estimate and the cost will become much clearer when work commences.

Communication is key to your project's stakeholder. We provided weekly summary updates to the executive management on how the project is going, included the hours we've spent working and what we worked on, as well as how much costs have change since our original estimate.