Has an Implementation by a Consultant EVER Failed?

We used (or I am) a consultant and at the registration audit:

  • Company - Passed 1st time - Registrar was our choice.

    Votes: 6 20.0%
  • Company - Passed 1st time - Registrar was chosen by our consultant.

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Company - Passed 1st time - Did not use a consultant.

    Votes: 10 33.3%
  • Company - Failed 1st time - Registrar was our choice.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Company - Failed 1st time - Registrar was chosen by our consultant.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Company - Failed 1st time - Did not use a consultant.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Consultant - Have never had a client fail - I choose registrar.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Consultant - Have never had a client fail - I do NOT choose registrar.

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • Consultant - Have had a client fail - I choose registrar.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Consultant - Have had a client fail - I do NOT choose registrar.

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Doesn't apply to me.

    Votes: 7 23.3%

  • Total voters
    30

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#11
:topic:
Cari Spears said:
Marc, is there a way that I can see the results?
There options in the poll for companies which don't (or didn't - whatever) use a consultant.

On the right side of the bottom of each poll there is a link which says something like 'View Poll Results'.

I typically add an 'opt out' where someone who doesn't want to vote, or it's not really applicable to them, can put in an entry so that when they visit the thread the poll results show automatically. I'll add one here.
 
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D

David Hartman

#13
I voted that as a consultant I have never had a company fail, and they chose the assessing agency. But I would think that another "failure" mode would be having the consultant "create" a canned QMS that may pass certification, but either does not meet the needs of the company or may not include the most efficient processes.

I have witnessed several of these canned QMS implementations that are burdensome to the organization, both in the labor to maintain the documentation created and in the process of forcing people to follow cumbersome processes that are foreign to them.

When the consultant leaves, the result should be an efficient definition of the processes that the company had in place, as well as processes that have been created/defined by the company personnel to fill in the gaps. This I would consider success.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#14
Rob Nix said:
The only successful contract with a consultant is a long term one.
Sometimes this is the case. I know of a company which is small and has a person who technically is a consultant but is classified as a part time employee. The person comes in a few days a month and does required enviromental reports and such. I know several companies which have 'part time' equivalents of what I call a quality manager. In this scenario the companies have no need for a fulll time person and have no desire (running lean) to take time from one or more employee who already has 'enough on his/her plate' to learn the requirements and then to take on the responsibilities in house. I have seen companies which have no GD&T person in-house so they 'contract' out certain parts of their contract review process (guess which part :rolleyes: ).

In the implementation projects I have been involved in I have acted more as a project manager than as a consultant per se. It depends upon how you want to define consultant. I have always told my implementation clients I can't do everything for them AND that success for me is to be able to walk out the door as soon as they are ready in my eyes and that they should not need me again. In fact, I have told each client whether I should even be at the registration audit based upon my opinion of their having someone who understands the requirements (the language of the standard and how it applies to their specific company). A few companies that I told they did not need me at their registration audit listened and did fine. Most, however, wanted me there 'regardless' - So sometimes I would get paid for basically doing nothing for a day to a week.

Each consultant has their way of doing things. Without actually being there and seeing what bobsedon (and bobsedon's consultant) is experiencing I can't voice an opinion there. I've seen some pretty slow projects where people just do not get done what they have to get done. Not much I could do. And yes - I have to ensure they dot their i's and cross their t's because if they don't and get nailed in the registration audit they'll blame me for the failure. This said I have no idea whether bobsedon's consultant is 'slow' or the company is.

As it is in EVERY profession, there are 'bad' consultants. But before anyone get's on their high horse and complains about 'bad' consultants, put in perspective I bet there are as many (as a % of the profession) 'bad' doctors, lawyers, plumbers, companies - whatever - as there are 'bad' consultants.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#15
ddhartma said:
...having the consultant "create" a canned QMS that may pass certification, but either does not meet the needs of the company or may not include the most efficient processes.
I have seen this and have yelled about it for many years. Perry Johnson has a 'We do it while you sleep' sales pitch.
 

Cari Spears

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
#16
The company I work for now didn't use a consultant exactly, but they were using a company that came in and wrote their documents for them. I hesitate to throw the name out there, but the first thing I did when I got here was re-write everything! I started working here exactly four weeks prior to their registration audit (they had already had their pre-assement) - by then I had the policy manual and about half of the procedures re-written. There was some grumbling about the wasted money, but there was no denying that the documentation was useless. It was all canned - "insert company name here" stuff. What a waste of money!
 
L

little__cee

#17
Team effort

The consultant was hired before I started here. The registrar was handpicked by the consultant.

I've learned that for most clients of the consultant, they use the same registrar and yes we've all passed.

I didn't realize we'd bought a "canned" version of a QMS - I was told that the consultants came in and helped our people create it. Out of curiosity I asked a friend for his QMS - his company used the same consultant - and lo and behold his is word for word exactly like ours! Same forms, same procedures, exactly the same.

:soap: So I lost faith in the whole consultant idea - jumped right in with both feet and told my boss that we didn't need them anymore. Going through old notes of my predecessor I saw where our employees made suggestions and the consultants either ignored them or sweet-talked them into going along with their version...what a crock. I'm disillusioned and bitter for sure, but I do have faith that there are good consultants out there who actually help their clients and not just pretend to help while they go through fake motions.
 
J

Jonell

#18
Here's your first one, Marc!

Marc said:
Wow! No 'votes' yet from any company which used a consultant! I'm somewhat surprised.
Okay, time to break the cycle...lol. As a new Quality Manager several years back, I was hired to implement ISO 9000:1994. I was told at the time of hire that I would be working with a consultant that they had already hired, which sounded great at the time. To make a long story short, we had our registration audit 3 months after I hired, because the consultant said we were ready (he chose the registrar). I had already expressed serious misgivings with the president/owner of the company about the readiness of the company. Well, we failed the audit miserably, the president/owner fired the consultant, and 6 months later we were registered to ISO.

Jonell
 
A

AllanJ

#19
Jonell said:
Okay, time to break the cycle...lol. As a new Quality Manager several years back, I was hired to implement ISO 9000:1994. I was told at the time of hire that I would be working with a consultant that they had already hired, which sounded great at the time. To make a long story short, we had our registration audit 3 months after I hired, because the consultant said we were ready (he chose the registrar). I had already expressed serious misgivings with the president/owner of the company about the readiness of the company. Well, we failed the audit miserably, the president/owner fired the consultant, and 6 months later we were registered to ISO.

Jonell

Having been a consultant for (probably too many) years, and having seen a whole host of standards, I must confess to having undertaken assignments which I personally regarded as failures. Fortunately, to fewer than the fingers on one hand do they total.

The "failures" have all occurred for the same reason: lack of top management support. In each case regardless of how hard I worked, how much persuasion I offered and reasoned argument for the business case of a sensible quality program, the CEO failed to provide the drive, leadership, resources etc for the client's staff to do what was required.

Any consultant who claims he or she "will put in the program" is being thoroughly disingenuous. One can advise, one can give case stories, one can assist with the development and improvement of the processes/ systems/ organizational arangements etc., but one CANNOT force the process owners to actually implement the stuff, one CANNOT coerce the CEO into enforcing compliance with the systems etc the client ityself has decided upon for the registration or for the quality program. As much as on those (failure) occasions I YEARNED for the kind of authority that comes with process ownership, that nevers occurs: and that is the sad nature of consulting.

The great puzzle is why did those CEOS bother to engage one's services if they had no intention of moving from the status quo or supporting what was required?

And, those who want the "instant-buy-it-off-the-shelf", ready to go CD of procedures, documents and all that you need assignment are not the ones I ever deal with.

If a consultant "picks" the registrar, that is unprofessional. If the client wants the consultant to "pick a registrar you know will pass us" - run for the hills: your reputation is ultimately at risk.
 
D

Dean P.

#20
How long have consultants been around??

I believe it was Thomas Edison who said,

"I have not failed. I have only found 10,000 ways that don't work."

I didn't realize Edison was a consultant. :D
 
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