The consultant way

This image was shared by my friend's friend on Facebook. After I went through the whole story in the comic I somehow felt that the Genie is more apt for a consultant than a professor( that too from IIT)

So this is my take on Consultants :)

A professor atleast will never guarantee success but plays a role of facilitator, whereas on contrary a consultant gives a very bad picture of your present( you may even feel like you are the biggest loser) and a gives a rosy picture post implementation. This can as well stir a discussion on the ethical stance of each of the professions.Which may go on for pages..so lets not deviate

Consultant is a person who comes in the middle of client's life [which was running peacefully till then], gives gyaan [read bullshit], confuses, scares, then provides a simple solution(on paper), charges hefty and disappears. After which only the client wakes up wondering what happened all the while.

You will get a good understanding on how a consultant visualizes and communicates the same to clients from the below image. This is typically in a software development cycle.

There is an old joke on consultant

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban..
sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd... "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answered "sure". The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his IBM ThinkPad and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he prints out a 130-page report on his miniaturized printer then turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1586 sheep. "That is correct; take one of the sheep." said the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car.
Then the shepherd says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?", "OK, why not." answered the young man. "Clearly, you are a consultant." said the shepherd. "That's correct." says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing required." answers the shepherd. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know crap about my business...... Now give me back my dog."

The bread and butter of a consultant comes by creating confusion among clients.

"If you cant convince them confuse them". 

Being a consultant the best part of the job is you don't really have to know much.A few jargons to bamboozle people is enough. Some very common jargons without which a consultant job is not done are synergy, value add, competitive advantage, value proposition etc. If you have any please to comment.

In my organization there is an interesting definition for consultant

"A consultant is person who comes and insults"

-Yours truly
Unknown (Yet another consultant)

Photo credit: Genie by Devesh Bhimsaria,Software development cycle
Joke : Consulting sheep