Same price – 4xs the value

Early on in my “big-time consulting” career, it was suggested I read the “Mythical Man Month” by Frederick Brooks. I came away from it significantly wiser about the perils of implementations and assuming interchangeable-consistent output based on ‘leveled’ resources when trying to finish a death march of an engagement. In technology, you can’t just throw ‘hours’ at the problem, and oftentimes, when you do so it makes the situation worse - great insight, albeit an insight that can be hard to defend when crunch time arrives.

Like any good book, I found my way back to it for a reread. For example, at age 40, I found myself re-reading The Great Gatsby. In this read, I took a new set of lessons from it based on my efforts in talent acquisition. Sometimes, to the delight of the CTO, one great resource can accomplish or exceed the outcomes produced by 3 or 4 individual resources. Furthermore, sometimes that one great resource is the same “price” as just one of the 3 or 4 resources working on a task. The most recent example that comes to mind is placing a QA engineer at one of our consumer lending clients - an engineer with the experience, a can-do attitude, and skills that qualify him as ‘great’ in my eyes. Within 6 short months, he took the automation testing coverage to 90% from 60% and the execution time from 4 days to 1. This was a job that had previously been assigned to a set of QA engineers who lacked his skills. A lead developer/architect that CC Pace had also placed at the client remarked to me that:

“Until now, in my 20-year career, I have never seen a QA Engineer do anything particularly impressive with decision/workflow automation, and most of them can’t even keep up with the basic changes.”

So, to rest my case, 4 days to 1, 4xs better. Our consultant, located in California, is constantly in touch with the team and client. His bill rate is no different than any of the formerly assigned resources. I’d argue that this is more like a 6xs better outcome. How is this possible? The talent acquisition industry is filled with vendors who prioritize filling roles quickly, rather than finding the right talent. Candidates are often screened by technicians who don’t fully grasp what top-tier quality looks like. As a result, they’re not truly committed to delivering the outcomes that matter most to the client.

So, for me, “The Mythical Man Month” has two sides to it: you can’t just add hours and get the job done… and on the other hand, quality really matters. We see this as a validation of CC Pace’s business model in Consumer Lending Talent Acquisition - far better quality at the same or lower price—achieving a far better business outcome.