[consulting] consulting Digest, Vol 62, Issue 20

[Kelly Bell]

> Nothing beats a collocated team when it comes to customer requirements analysis, rapid feedback, changes, and trust.

I disagree. It's only ONE PERSON the client needs to trust - not the whole team. The implication being that the person the client needs to trust is the person responsible for their project, who assures the quality of the final work product. I'm addressing this (ironically, in this context) by having a distributed network of highly-skilled Drupal freelancers, all of whom run their own businesses and know how to handle client relationships. Because of the distributed nature of the team, there can be a local client in-peron relationship, if needed, because we're in all major markets (at least in the USA - I'm working on the global situation). I think it's incumbent on all of us to learn new ways to not have to work in the same room - for so many reasons I can't even keep count, among the most important of which is that many of the best people don;t want to work onsite - this confirmed by several Drupal recruiters I've asked about this. Because if one thing is clear to me, a distributed workforce for coding is the future.

> Some projects can be treated as commodities, but I believe the relationship between customer and consultant is vital to delivering the most useful and expected work items. 

Now THAT I completely agree with. Relationship and trust are everything. Otherwise you're drowning in a sea of paperwork, requirements documents, and all kinds of artificial "assurances" and CYAs that in the end, mean nothing outside a courtroom. And if you're in a courtroom, the relationship is certainly not going to be recoverable.

Integrity and trustworthiness are the most important assets we have outside our technical knowledge, and they're the attributes that really set the best people apart. Those are the qualities my "partner evaluation rubric" (this algorithm I've made which factors a whole lot of qualities and skills and weights them, and is designed for Drupal coders specifically - my very own Certified to Rock) attached very high weighting to, with emphasis on previous direct working relationships.

Kelly Bell
917.446.1555
twitter: @kelly @gothamdrupal
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/gotham-city-drupal
http://gothamcitydrupal.com
http://drupal.org: kbell
freenode.irc: kbell
http://acquia.com/partners/showcase/gotham-city-drupal

On Mar 23, 2011, at 2:51 PM, consulting-request at drupal.org wrote:

> Nothing beats a collocated team when it comes to customer requirements analysis, rapid feedback, changes, and trust.
> 
> Some projects can be treated as commodities, but I believe the relationship between customer and consultant is vital to delivering the most useful and expected work items. 
> 
> --Jim