The lack of hard advice is great for them because they're essentially never wrong but you'll also never fix the problem with the advice alone. Keeps the gravy train going; if they solved our problems with hard facts in blogs, we wouldn't need them.
That said, the advice itself is still pretty good if you have the chops to follow through, but I honestly don't think you can build the chops by hiring in the consultancy to tell you. In fact, it's actually a bad sign that you leadership both need obvious advice, and think they can enact change by hiring the consultancy.
The reality is, you'd probably have better results changing the leadership.
1. They don’t understand what you need or how to get it to you, but they sound like they do, and they look professional.
2. There are no great contracting options for something you can’t do yourself and that there aren’t requirements for.
Fixed contacts may start off looking good but they swap resources out and you end up incomplete or halfassed, overtime and maybe over-budget.
A renewable contract may blow really pretty smoke too and look like a high speed train, but that’s not what was needed, they never finish, or when it’s forced to completion, it’s incomplete or halfassed, overtime and over-budget.
If you don’t take care of your health on your own, you can’t expect a doctor to do that for you. Similarly, don’t expect a contractor to solve all of your team’s development problems, though some can give good advice or assistance.
Steps towards making yourself healthy may include exercise, eating better, adequate sleep, regular checkups, etc., while steps towards fixing your development team’s problems may include raising those to your leadership, own problems, foster trust, facilitate, and change your job if problems are not resolved.
Funnily enough I was a contractor providing leadership and helping orgs for the last 5 years. I did my best to varying degrees of success because the leadership themselves would either let you run with it or not. My 1 man band is very different from thoughtworks though.
Now I am leadership and it's way easier to just make decisions.
But if you don’t understand the requirements, choose to pay someone to figure it out, and they finger-paint your business, you may have been better off without it.
Nothing sells better than crap. By that I mean literally nothing, like you could sell emptiness more feasibly.
The lack of hard advice is great for them because they're essentially never wrong but you'll also never fix the problem with the advice alone. Keeps the gravy train going; if they solved our problems with hard facts in blogs, we wouldn't need them.
That said, the advice itself is still pretty good if you have the chops to follow through, but I honestly don't think you can build the chops by hiring in the consultancy to tell you. In fact, it's actually a bad sign that you leadership both need obvious advice, and think they can enact change by hiring the consultancy.
The reality is, you'd probably have better results changing the leadership.