Prime Consulting

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - famous quote from novel "Anna Karenina" by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy - i believe is applicable to consulting practices as well in form of "Prime consulting are all alike; but every subprime consulting is subpriming in its own way".

While it is easy to criticize subprime consulting practices the real value, inspired by positive reinforcement, is coming from promoting and establishing best consulting practices: Win-Win-Win

Win for Client, Win for Partner, and Win for Vendor.

Since over 20 years in IT and over 10 years in IT consulting i know of 4 people in USA that shaped my understanding of Prime Consulting - 3 that i know name, but never met, and 1 that i met, but didn't understand/remembered her name.

Russian immigrant Boris, Hungarian immigrant Laszlo, and Jewish Deborah - they all are founders of consulting companies for Oracle e-Business Suite - companies i took the most from in terms of personal professional growth.

But most interesting is story how i met 4th inspiration...

I was assigned to project where all consultants, except me, were from India. Project room, also known as war room - term borrowed from military and political campaigns, was big enough to accommodate all 10-12 of us. Everybody was busy with own tasks and learned to tune out constant flow of business users, project managers, and senior staff. Room had constant noise and reminded human bee hive...

One time with side vision i noticed that all consultants started to raise from chairs and unusual silence filled the war room. Confused and intrigued i looked around and behind me was standing small women in Indian clothes saris (thank to Google for picture and derived name). I stood up as well with single thought "Who Are You?"

I guess my face was revealing my thought as women smiled and asked me first "Who are you?"
My answer was not clear, i guess, as she replied "Nice to meet you Roman Fromukraine" ("from Ukraine" sounded more like one word last name).

She walked whole room and personally greeted every consultant and during this ceremony everybody kept standing quietly.

After she left I asked colleagues who that was, but answer was not definitive. Finally at lunch one colleague told that women is mastermind of consulting practice from India that grew from zero to $1 billion in yearly sales.

Financial results were impressive, but most amazing was to see respect from colleagues. Consultants are known to be one of the most egoistic and not caring professions, so seeing them give standing silence to lady from India was very memorable moment. The only component i would add to make scene perfect is Pen Ceremony as it was seen in Academy Award winning movie Beautiful Mind.

In process of reverse engineering best consulting practices the stories from colleagues from India were always very valuable.

But over last couple of years i had privilege to engage in discussions with colleague from rising consulting practice in Ukraine. And slowly I'm getting to believe that what they doing is analogy to Fifth Element that in connection to Russian, Hungarian, Jewish, and Indian know-hows will shape my understanding of future Supreme Consulting and can completely disrupt Subprime Consulting.

LinkedIn group Prudent Consulting Act is place to keep discussions about shaping future consulting practices.

Join and share your stories about best consulting practices... and learn more about Supreme Consulting.

best regards,
Roman "Fromukraine"