Three Laws Of Consulting By Gerald M. Weinberg

re: Three Laws Of Consulting By Gerald M. Weinberg

Jimmy May — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:03:09 GMT

I am eager to hear more of Mr. Weinberg.

I'm distressed by the anecdote you shared regarding the Second Law. The responses from the engineering & management teams struck me as unethical--if the project was over-scoped, so be it. Competence should be rewarded, not punished. Like you stated in your commentary to the First Law, the competent consultant will build his/her brand & get more gigs. Another way to look at it is doing the right thing--& ripping off the customer by slacking for five months is never the right thing.

Alik, I applaud your stretching yourself the way you do. I'm fascinated that as an Architect you have the time to read as much as you do--& apply it such as you do here. Thanks for sharing this great info!

re: Three Laws Of Consulting By Gerald M. Weinberg

alikl — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:46:26 GMT

Jimmy, great to hear you liked Weinberg's insights!

"Doing the right thing...." hmmm.

Tech should serve people and not the other way around we both agree on that, right?

So what is "doing the right thing"?

I agree that ripping off the customer by slacking for five months is a bad choice, but there is so many choices in between....

Competent consultant must read the situation - both technical and human.

In the end it is a people problem ;)

So what are you optimizing? tech or people?

Competent consultant must find the optimum that does both to the max – and that's tough....

re: Three Laws Of Consulting By Gerald M. Weinberg

Jimmy May — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:23:09 GMT

Of course it's tough--if it were easy my Aunt Matilda would be doing it in her spare time, eh?

You're right about the choices in between--& I almost commented that I've yet to run into an app with a single performance issue. If the stakeholders permitted, I would provide additional value by optimizing my solution, the rest of the app, & training my customers in the ways of performance-&-scalability.

With regard to what I'm optimizing, it's the relatively rare person who is trainable. So I stick with things I can change--myself. (Ask my lovely bride, I may be a bit slow at times, yet I am eminently trainable. ;-) )

I tend to agree with Mr. Weinberg--many problems are people problems. As I reflect on my problematic engagements, it's clear that the biggest problems by far were people problems!

And this brings us back to your post on Dale Carnegie: http://practicethis.com/?s=dale+carnegie

Of course, Dale Carnegie training is so much more than public speaking--it's people skills!

Speaking of trainable, Dale Carnegie training was one of the best things I ever did, for details:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay/archive/2008/09/21/commencement-keynote-itt-technical-institute-indianapolis-9-20-2008.aspx

re: Three Laws Of Consulting By Gerald M. Weinberg

Biondi Tang — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:42:25 GMT

A positive view on "its always a people problem" could be "its always a communication problem". No matter how good a solution is, it takes time and effort to make the stakeholders understand and believe with confidence.

On the other side, its also true. It takes time and effort for the consultant to really understand the problems so that to provide a feasible solution.

Technical expertise is hard enough, communication is even harder...

re: Three Laws Of Consulting By Gerald M. Weinberg

alikl — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:41:52 GMT

Biondi!

Too true, too true.

Keeping your positive note …. I’d even go further calling it "it’s always a communication *challenge*" ;)

During last two weeks I witnessed the art of interpersonal communications. That was too educating and I learned a lot about interpersonal communications. I also learned a lot about influence without authority which is heavily based on the art of interpersonal communication.

Take a look at these two other posts of mine – its main theme is “speaking the language people understand”

http://blogs.msdn.com/alikl/archive/2007/03/22/security-language-that-every-one-understands.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/alikl/archive/2008/11/24/consulting-and-security-reviews-how-to-get-everyone-onboard.aspx

Thanks for your insights!

Perception, Reality, & Incrementally Tuning World-Class Applications

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:28:34 GMT

Performance & the 20% Rule I was reading the post from Ed Glas , Make Your Performance Work Count: