Bruce's point was about the phenomenon, likely to happen over and over in the IT industry, that Rational Unified Process focus only on one aspect that seems to be "the solution" and miss the big picture, producing unintended consequences that eliminate the benefit of what may seem so clear in isolation.
More generally, the question whether is possible to scale a consulting operation without turning it into a body shop such as Andersen Consulting is affronted.
“ It's tempting to make the analogy to a ponzi scheme, but it's not that bad. Both forms of a consulting firm (first-class consultants only vs. high-tech body shop) have value. The problem is the temptation to present the second form as the first, in order to apply the same high fees of the first-class consultant to each additional body added to the shop. The goal of the company becomes "how do we transfer the aura of authority from the high-image consultant(s) to anyone who works for us, so that we can charge the highest fees possible?" Or to simplify, at some point the bean-counter mentality takes over and the mission statement of the company goes from "how do we provide the greatest value to the customer?" to "how do we charge the highest fees possible?" (You can argue that this is the fundamental shift that any publicly-held company goes through. After all, a public company is legally beholden to maximize shareholder value, so how could it be otherwise?)”
Still, according to Bruce, consulting is "when you have some kind of special expertise -- come by through hard struggle and learning -- that you transfer to a group of people, in a relatively short period of time, and in a way that is unique for that group".
I think this is not the case for 99,999999999 % of IT consultants ... or something more. So, let's assume Bruce's statement, how is it possible that IT consulting doesn't scale when first-class consulting do? We ougth to admint this looks at least a bit strange. Perhaps, the term consulting is misused for the IT case...
