Ask Slashdot: How Can You Find a Good IT Consultant?

Slashdot reader Thelasko says his wife manages a small eight-person business -- but remains unhappy with the company's IT consultant: She's had endless problems with Windows 10 Pro's update system causing downtime. Anytime she calls the IT consultant, they don't resolve issues to her satisfaction, and the company gets stuck with a large bill. She's resorted to researching and providing support for the company network herself.

The contract is up at the end of the year, and she wants to find a new consultant. The company owner however, doesn't want to switch because all of the work the consultant provided is covered under a "warranty" for 3 years (the company typically gets charged). I don't work in IT myself, and am unable to provide advice. What should they do? How would Slashdot find a reputable consultant?
Leave your best answers in the comments. How can you find a good IT consultant?

Comments

Freelancers!

[b0s0z0ku]

(1) Do it yourself ... or ...
(2) Find a competent freelancer

The problem is that most smart and competent freelancers get bored of doing network/IT support after a while and either go back to university and do something else, or move into a more interesting part of IT like programming or design.

This brings me to a third idea -- put up ads that you need someone at a local university. You might end up with a career-changer or former freelancer who needs a few dinars on the side to pay for school. Even better if you can pay promptly without too much drama.

Address Business Problems First

[brian.stinar]

You are not in a position to be successful.

You're asking the wrong question - instead of asking "how to find a good IT consultant" you should be asking yourself the questions "how can I position myself in order to be able to find a good IT consultant." If the actual decision maker (not you) is making decisions based on faulty understanding (warranty, cost, quality) then you are not in a position to make a good decision. Understanding this will help you resolve the actual problem (the decision making process) rather than the symptom (the poor performance of an IT consultant.) Once you address this, then you'll be able to do things like create evaluation time periods, measure effectiveness, measure cost, measure downtime, and other metrics that should help you solve the problem you initially tried to solve. Before that, you need to solve a deeper problem.

So, I believe you either need to change who is making the decision (delegation), change how they are making the decision (evaluation), or remove yourself from the equation (quit/stop caring), before you address the issue you initially asked about.

Re:That warranty makes zero sense to me

[Kjella]

The company owner however, doesn't want to switch because all of the work the consultant provided is covered under a "warranty" for 3 years

Also if the work is covered under a warranty, shouldn't that mean they have to repair whatever even if not under contract?

Better questions, how often have they ever gotten warranty repairs free? Who's time and money is spent investigating a possible warranty issue? If the consultant blames Microsoft, would they ever make a third party review? Even if they did and found shoddy work is mostly at fault, would they ever have the time and resources to drive a process to force the consultant to unwillingly fix it under warranty? I smell a cushy kickback scheme here, the consultant gets the job of finding the problem. So 90% of the time, it's not his fault and he bills in full, while 10% of the time he'll say it's a "free" warranty fix. Of course he bakes that into his rates, but in return he gets all new business because the owner feels he'll lose "invested" warranty time going with somebody else. He's being played by a simple mind trick.