Re: Is this Needed? Dragging OT
- From: stephen booth <stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: GJohnson@xxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 17:38:34 +0100
On 28/10/05, Johnson, George <GJohnson@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Not wishing to drag this way off topic....
>
> In all seriousness is this the general perception of contractors
> across the globe? That we are a tolerated resource but ideally the world
> might be a better place without us.
I've had to deal with a number of contractors (perils of UK public
sector working) and have found that som,e are decent and helpful
whilst others make Arthur Daly seem like a paragon of virtue. The
ratio seems to be about 1:5 (possibly being in the public sector where
'cheap initial bid' beats 'good but you get what you pay for' most of
the time means I've run into more of the fly-by-nights).
The good contrators listen to what you need from them, come up with a
solution (usually more than one, explaining the different pros and
cons of each one, and let you choose) which they implement. They
don't mind if the permanent staff sit in and are quite happy to
explain what they're doing and why and to fully document what they
did.
The bad contractors will drop in their standard one-size-fits-all
solution and then charge you extra for 'bespoke customisations' (i.e.
getting it to work) which they claim wasn't covered by the original
contract, won't explain anything to the permanent staff because 'It's
too advanced' then leave without providing any documentation or even
the passwords they changed all the passwords to.
My preference for getting contractors in (assuming they're there to
provide skills, not just an extra pair of hands to cover leave or
because your DBA (i.e. your only DBA) has just left for a much better
job and you haven't managed to hire a replacement yet) is that they
don't actually do any of the work directly themselves. They talk one
or two of the permanent staff through how to do it (and why) as they
do it and document the process. That is hiring a contractor should be
an opportunity to improve the skills of your permanent workers, rather
than just get a task done and have the skills required to do it again
or to support it walk out the door with a sizable fraction of your IT
budget in their back pocket. Some might disagree
Stephen
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