Don’t Over Engineer Your Solution

I was meeting with a potential client a few days ago and over the course of our discussions they began to relate their frustrations with a previous consulting firm they were dealing with. The analogy was “I would tell the consultant I would like for him to take this apple from my hand and take it to the kitchen. The consultant would then begin over engineering the solution. Which path to the kitchen should I take? Which door should I go through? Do I need to take more apples in case somebody else wants one? Should I bring some other fruit in case they don’t like apples?”

In our line of consulting we are often engaged by clients who have a vision of a product or application they need to perform their day to day tasks. Oftentimes this application is replacing tedious manual tasks the employee must do on a regular basis. They know exactly how to do it every time since this painful ordeal is performed ad nausea. In this case, they know the business process to a T. But what they usually do not know or understand is how to create an application (be it a Web Application, Mobile Phone App, or any other technology). After we are engaged and understand their needs and the business steps, we must begin to develop a solution to help them ease the pain. During this step, it is very tempting to over engineer our solution – after all, that is what we have been taught to do and strive for – creating a highly scalable, highly available solution. But this is not always the need for the client. Do we need a doubly redundant server cluster hosting SOA architecture for a team of users that only has 10 people and is not processing high volumes of data? Not really. We must all find the right fit for our solutions based not only on the business requirements, but on the overall vision the client has for their technology.

Engineer a solution that fits what the client is really asking for – we don’t have to build a mansion if they are really just looking for a shed for their lawnmower.

Providing Value to our Clients

A shepherd was herding his flock in a country pasture when suddenly a brand-new truck appeared out of a dust cloud on the farm road. The driver, a young man in an expensive suit and expensive hair cut leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a city-slicker, then looks at his grazing flock and answers, "Sure. Why not?"

The city-slicker parks his truck, whips out his laptop, connects it to his 3G network, surfs to a NASA site, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location feeding the coordinates to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an high-def photo. The young man then opens the digital photo and exports it to an image processing facility in New York. Within seconds, he receives an email on his smart phone that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a SQL database with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his smart phone and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his miniaturized LaserJet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says,

"You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep." says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of his animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the cab of his truck.

The shepherd turns to the man and says "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," says the city-slicker, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here even though 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 anything about my business."

"…Now give me back my dog."


After reading this joke and realizing that there is a glimmer of truth in it, I started thinking about our business. Over the past few weeks we have put a lot of focus on the Statement Of Work (SOW) deliverables that we develop in the process of selling and starting new engagements. This is the first step in ensuring that we are providing the right solution to our clients and making sure that they understand what we are delivering to them. Sometimes we as consultants get mired in the minutae of projects and lose sight of what we were brought in to do as defined by these SOWs. We must all make sure that not only are we constructing quality solutions, but that those solutions MUST solve the correct problem. A $100 fire-forged, double gripped hammer may be the best hammer ever - but it has no use to someone who only deals with screws.

Guiding Decisions in the Direction you Wish

During my years in being an IT consultant, I have developed somewhat of an art to guide clients (and sometimes team members) come to the conclusions that I would like them to have, but in a way where they think that it either sprang from their own head or that we developed the idea together, as a team.

Some portions of this art has developed from my readings of Dale Carnegie's book "How to Win Friends & Influence People".

One of the short lists that come from this book is this:

12 ways to win people to your way of thinking

• The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.


• Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”


• If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.


• Begin in a friendly way.


• Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.


• Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.


• Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.


• Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.


• Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.


• Appeal to the nobler motives.


• Dramatize your ideas.


• Throw down a challenge.

The one of these that I have utilized the most and with greatest success is the idea of "Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers." While this is not overly difficult to accomplish, it does take a little bit of preparation from your part. Not only do you need to know what conclusion you wish to have, but you also must think about logic steps that you can use to lead the other person to this conclusion.

In order to lead the other person, you can use a couple of the other items in the list to help: "Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view" and "Let the other person do a great deal of the talking." By using the point of view idea in your preparation of the discussion, you will hopefully be able to identify the question or concerns that the other person may derive during your discussion. Knowing where they may have issues, will help you either guide around the issues or enable you to alleviate the issue. By allowing the other other person to do most of the talking, but interjecting your own ideas to help guide the conversation, you allow the other person to connect the dots logically, working out a solution for themselves.

A key aspect to all of this is that you must let go of the fact that once you have guided the other party to the conclusion, that it will no longer ever be considered your idea. This is sometimes hard for people to do - give up credit for a really great idea. But in the consultant world, the final result, and the clients feelings about the entire engagement, is much more important than who gets credit for the idea.