Naming & Shaming - Ethical & Legal Stance

[SGTRawlins]

Good Day Lades and Gents,

Recently my company hired a consultancy firm for the design and implementation of a multi-site network infrastructure.

The original contract plan was for a 2-day implementation involving 2 of their consultants and 2 of my staff, We are now 6 months after the expected closure date for the project and they have currently spent nearly 40 consultancy days attempting to complete the implementation.

The issues they have experienced lie solely on there poor communication of their staff and management.

This firm is very successful and very well know, I believe that it would be very interesting for other IT professional from around the world to hear of the fiasco surrounding this case.

So, my question to you is; what is the "Ethical & Legal" stance of "Naming & Shaming" this firm in a widely viewed media such as Computer Weekly Magazine?

Don't get me wrong, this is not devised as a revenge attack, the article mentioning would be a well structured article discussing the role of suppliers as project managers and simply "name dropping" as a case study.

Thanks in advance for all your comments.

Robo

 

[MikeLacey]

Sounds like a good way to lose your job Robo - or even to get sued. I understand your frustration though.

Mike

"Deliver me from the bane of civilised life; teddy bear envy."

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[Dimandja]

Robo, are you sure your own company did not contribute to the fiasco?

 

[SGTRawlins]

Dimandja - I am most definatly certain that we did not contribute to the issues with the project, our members of staff were thier purely for manual labour purposes and to aide in the development of user policies etc, all configuration was carried out by the other company.

MikeLacey - The comments woulld be made anonomously so thier would be no relation between the article and my company.

Cheers Guys.

 

[Dimandja]

our members of staff were thier purely for manual labour purposes and to aide in the development of user policies etc

This simply means that your company participated in the project - in the fiasco.

The comments woulld be made anonomously so thier would be no relation between the article and my company.

Horribly bad idea! Looks like you are headed for a libel suit.

 

[drlex]

Robo,
What would the article, if published acheive? As MikeLacey has pointed out, you may lose you job. I'm sure everyone in the Forum will have experience of some type of IT fiasco, whether resulting from internal or external conditions, so reading about others in the trade papers is never a surprise.

Is not the way forward a more direct penalty to the consultancy concerned - cancellation, non-payment and re-sourcing - or does either the terms and conditions of the contract of engagement or the state of the project not allow for such?

soi la, soi carre

 

[SGTRawlins]

Luckely due to T&C's within the contract we are able to with hold payment untill all acceptance tests are complete.

I was planning on writting the article as part of the whole debate on out sourcing that rages amoungst IT prefssionals, there seems to e alot of buzz around this subject at the moment and thought it might be fun to be first to start pointing fingers,

But i think you guys are right, this could be dodgy, just fustrated at the moment, fed up with the incompetence of others costing me time, money and my hair!

 

[gurner]

There are two sides of the Out Sourcing arguement

If in the case of a delayed Infrustructure expansion

then

1, the majority is out sourced to a consultancy that don't know thier A*** from their elbows, and there is a fleet of in-house engineers that could do it in a third of the time and better because they are familiar with the existing infrustructure.

or in the case i have seen 'many' times

2, the consultancy have a very broad knowledge of the different types of solutions available, but are consistantly delayed by an ignorant/arrogant 'why are we not doing this/i hate this company i work for' in-house engineers

in either scenario there is going to be a loser.

if the out-sourcing argument is about out-sourcing support/call centres to India for example, then i agree.

They are probably providing for a family of 50 in a 10ft x 10ft shed, but only know what they are reading from their script, and calling them selves Bob.

But in the case of out-sourcing physical technical 'tasks' (for want of a better word) then again there are two sides

Gurner

What is Divine Paradox?

http://www.divineparadox.co.uk

 

[SGTRawlins]

In this particular scenario we origionaly were just going to out source items susch as,

1. Cabling
2. VPN Configuration

The rest of the job was going to be developed by in house engineers, however, due to the project being a multisite task and us having enough engineers we had a few companies tender for complete design, implementation, configuration!

After having several meetings with a team of thier consultants we were comformatable that they knew what they were doing, as i mentioned above they are globaly renound.

As far as the indevidual consultants competencce and knowledge is concerned you could not ask for more.

As for thier management and communications skills....well....no comment.

When drawing up the contract thier were er usual a number of assumptions and commitments that my company had to fulfill, if these were not fulfilled then the consultantcy firm withhold the right to charge us £1000 a day for any delays.

They have managed to change consultants 11 times during the project, each one not properly documenting his work and ideas for the next.

The first signs of trouble were when 2 consultants turned up on the first day and claimed that they did not actualy know what they were meant to be doing, by the end of the day, and after several voicmails to thier manager they had managed to plug the server box in....but that was it.

Any way, you can see where this is heading........40 consultantcy days later, we are still having major issues and the system is very un-reliable.

Thier seems to be a very slow progess on ammending the final issue we have and i am not convinced they know how to fix the issues they created for themselves.

Do you suppose that i could suggest they tear it all out and start from scratch again!? This may resolve the issue they are having, or it could take us back to square 1.

Cheers Guys.

 

[jrbarnett]

SGTRawlins

I know of a similar situation to yours at which the contract was terminated at the earliest opportunity and the work brought back in house after extreme dissatisfaction with the outsourced organisation. You are not the only one.

John

 

[SGTRawlins]

That nice to know John, cheers buddy!

 

[chiph]

Having the contract terminated early sends enough of a message to other potential clients of this firm that they'll know what happened.

Like others have said here, spreading the story will just cause ill-will and a possible libel suit. I wouldn't say a word.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
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[gurner]

sounds like scenario no.1

Gurner

What is Divine Paradox?

http://www.divineparadox.co.uk

 

[Dimandja]

I have seen this kind of fiasco too often. A company will outsource work, go to sleep, and wake up later expecting to see a miracle. This kind of disaster can happen even when work is outsourced to the next cubicle.

Poor management is always to blame. It's a good thing someone woke up early, and caught the problem before the company went bankrupt.

Dimandja

 

[OhioBill]

I'd write a paper on the entire event if I thought it would benefit anyone, along with naming the companies involved and the players. If you decide to follow through on this, you might consult with an attorney on libel law. It would help if you had a tall stack of notes you'd kept throughout the process, including meeting minutes.

To prove libel in the US, the writings must be untrue. You can't be successfully sued for printing the truth, but you can still be sued. Who pays for your attorney, and do you have deep pockets? For instance, I was once named in a suite for $200,000, but being broke I didn't worry about it (the suite was eventually dropped).

If you do decide to publish, get an editor to help you and listen to what the editor has to say.

Good luck to you.

 

[Dollie]

It's too bad there's nowhere to report "consultants" like this. It'd be nice to know if someone we might be employing has dragged out projects well past deadlines and well over budgets. There's nothing to control this, unless you want to post to ripoffreport.com

 

[Dimandja]

Background checks are already being used for this very purpose. Let's not get unduly alarmed.

 

[Dollie]

Background checks don't reveal past work habits, only past criminal habits.

 

[EBGreen]

What about the Better Business Beureau (if you are in the US). I don't know if there is an equivalent to this down under or not.

[blue]"Well, once again my friend, we find that science is a two headed beast. One head is nice, it gives us aspirin and other modern conveniences,...but the other head of science is BAD! Oh, beware the other head of science, Arthur; it bites!!" - The Tick[/blue]

 

[Dimandja]

I don't know about you, but where I have worked background checks are designed to ferret out work ethics as much as anything else. In fact, only recently have criminal histories become prominent in background checks.