Advice from people who still do the work
The problem with most IT consulting is that the person writing the recommendation will never have to live with it. We will — we run our own hosting platform, our own software, our own infrastructure. That changes what we are willing to put our name to.
What we are usually asked
- "We are about to spend a lot of money. Is this the right thing to spend it on?"
- "Our system works but nobody understands it and the person who built it left."
- "We are acquiring a company. What are we actually inheriting, technically?"
- "This quote is three times what we expected. Is it mad, or are we?"
How we answer it
We spend time in the business — not just with the IT people, but with the ones who actually use the systems and have quietly built spreadsheets to route around them. That is usually where the real problem is.
Then we write it down. What is a risk. What is costing money quietly. What should be fixed first because everything else depends on it. What can wait a year, and honestly, what can wait forever.
The bias we do have
Toward less. Fewer systems, fewer vendors, fewer moving parts, fewer clever ideas that need a specialist to maintain. Complexity is a bill that arrives every month for the rest of the system's life, and most businesses are already paying more of it than they realise.