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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?
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?
It seems her boss doesn't value her work, and quality work in general. I wouldn't advise to stay at such a company on the long term. Nothing will change until she gets overwhelmed and burnt out, and then she'll be the scapegoat for the crisis.
She's had endless problems with Windows 10 Pro's update system causing downtime.
Yes, that is what it's there for.
Anytime she calls the IT consultant, they don't resolve issues to her satisfaction
Thought: Maybe this is not on the consultant, but the choice to use Windows for everything. But despite all that, lets move on to the main issue...
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
What would a "Warranty" even mean even mean for IT consulting? Within a single year so much about the system would have changes because of Microsoft or hardware updates that any kind of warranty would be meaningless. Also if the work is covered under a warranty, shouldn't that mean they have to repair whatever even if not under contract?
If they are not happy move on, though as I stated before I do not think they can find happiness given what they are giving the IT consultants to work with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
True dat. The original question is: "How do you find a good (Windows) IT consultant", which is a subset of "good Windows IT", which is, of course, the null set.
It matters where in the world the need is. Without a City and State, I'd be in the dark trying to help.
Not kidding. IT bro's are not your friend. If you can manage it have a male negotiate, even if you are the decider. I speak as a female business owner.
On one hand I have never seen a "good consultant", on the other hand, how could you expect a single person to fix the complete and utter mess that the Windows 10 update system is?
I have encountered some quite good freelance "support providers", though. They don't have a website, they don't advertise, they seem to be keeping as quiet as they can, because they get more than enough work just by word of mouth. So the only way to find them is to talk to other comparable businesses in your area.
I'm an ex-IT'er running a business that requires IT work to deal with our mission critical software, and I can't find anybody. I've been through 4 different firms in the past few years, and most of them can't even work professionally (return emails, calls, provide written estimates, etc.).
I don't respond to AC's.
You will be blamed for any changes you make.
Stupid bosses deserve to get what they ask for. Protect yourself, don't fall on your sword for someone guaranteed to yank it free then stick it in your back.
Do your job, get paid, and hand off all problems to the magic company supposed to fix them. Let them own their failure!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
(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.
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.
Of the people I know only the worse have remained on Windows, and for the money.
A simple reason, you are just a slave of Microsoft, so, you just work for money.
It used to be that the changes where reasonable and bearable, but really, Win10 is sit
You really want to get better ? Start with replacing 1/10 of the computers that do menial work with Linux + Libreoffice.
It works, and the people dealing with it are better...
Gee, what an ignorant, blatant assertion...no doubt by a chair occupier in a large corporation.
Small businesses always need competent consulting (which only a few actually get) to help them achieve their goals in business. And, Large Businesses use them as a "check" on their staff, who are often not as up-to-date as is the qualified consul.
I only did it for 20 years, and only to Fortune 500 companies...and no CEO ever complained about my deliverables. It's the insecure programmers and "analysts" who need that regular paycheck and so don't dare to propose anything outside their self-imposed box.
--Carol Anne
To be fair, I have worked at some fairly large companies that took a really long time to get a grip on their windows update issues.
They ended up installing some proprietary tool that was sold by our enterprise security vendor. It was not cheap and it was difficult to set up and required frequent attention, (like 2 people to implement over a month and 1/4 person to maintain).
Since then Microsoft has come out with WSUS (Windows Server Update Services), which allow you to stage updates to an internal server then push and verify them as you want. This system would have similar personnel requirements and both systems would require constant attention to verify that updates do not 'break' your other systems.
A few key points:
1. The constant "Security Patch Tuesday" updates will always set your IE and Excel settings to high security
2. This breaks almost all software that requires easy integration from server to client via web services.
3. Paying a person to babysit these problems is hella expensive (in terms of downtime for workers and face time with the IT guy)
4. Setting your Group Policies to disallow changes to certain settings will eventually squash most of these bugs, but there will always be more issues
5. Companies cannot operate with out good security practices, good security people are expensive
TLDR; How fast do you want to go? How much are you willing to pay?
She's had endless problems with Windows 10 Pro's update system causing downtime.
The problem here is Windows 10 Pro for which there is no magic fix other than not using it. If the product does not perform to your satisfaction then the solution is to not using the product.
People hate this answer because it means moving to another operating system which can be unpleasant but that doesn't make it any less true.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The "warranty" acts as a "client retention tool", more than anything, and is probably routed to the sales department as an opportunity to push more billable services at them.
I was thinking of it as marketing, but had not considered the leverage it offered for even more sales - like "Great news! 25% of the problem is covered by your warranty, so you only owe us $10 for the server updates that failed!".
In fact the more I think about it the more I think any kind of unrealistic long term warranty offered seems like a huge red flag.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
True dat. The original question is: "How do you find a good (Windows) IT consultant", which is a subset of "good Windows IT", which is, of course, the null set.
Which, while a popular opinion on Slashdot, is incorrect. There are plenty of senior Windows professionals. The problem is that not many companies are will to pay for expert advice. They want cheap service and they get what they pay for.
To find the best, find a company that has senior Windows professionals who are Windows NT experts. Why? Because the underlying Windows system hasn't changed much since Windows NT days. Windows has the same strengths and weaknesses that it had back then and they are well understood by the NT guys. The newer Windows guys are brought up with the philosophy that it's easier to re-image, but the worker loses a ton of downtime re-configuring all of their apps. The Windows NT guys were brought up with the philosophy of fixing the OS in place.
The problem is that not many companies are will to pay for expert advice.
No. The problem is that people that need an IT consultant are not able to judge quality. If they knew enough to make that judgement, they wouldn't need the consultant in the first place.
And don't give me that crap about "You get what you pay for." That is absolutely untrue in IT.
The best solution in this case is likely for her to build her team's internal skill set. Learn how to troubleshoot and use ServerFault, Microsoft.com, and Google for solutions. If she pays for a "solution", she should make sure she understands exactly what the consultant did, so she can do it herself next time.
... googling Oxymoron, Inc.
They're the best.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
True dat. The original question is: "How do you find a good (Windows) IT consultant", which is a subset of "good Windows IT", which is, of course, the null set.
Which, while a popular opinion on Slashdot, is incorrect. There are plenty of senior Windows professionals. The problem is that not many companies are will to pay for expert advice. They want cheap service and they get what they pay for.
To find the best, find a company that has senior Windows professionals who are Windows NT experts. Why? Because the underlying Windows system hasn't changed much since Windows NT days. Windows has the same strengths and weaknesses that it had back then and they are well understood by the NT guys. The newer Windows guys are brought up with the philosophy that it's easier to re-image, but the worker loses a ton of downtime re-configuring all of their apps. The Windows NT guys were brought up with the philosophy of fixing the OS in place.
Windows "NT guy" here. Windows Update. System Restore. Apps. An infinite array of security policy options. The bloody UI that still gets even seasoned professionals lost. I can think of another dozen things that are vastly different with Windows 10 vs. Windows NT. About the only damn thing that remained was NTFS. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you better find a Windows 10 professional. More specifically a desktop support specialist who specializes in Windows.
See, that is the inherent problem with the assumption that you can just go out and find an "IT guy" who knows it all. That world of IT is vastly larger than it was 30 years ago. It's like wanting to find "some mechanic" to work on your Ferrari.
Attention businesses running Windows. Learn to fucking specialize and get the expert you need. And understand you get what you pay for. It's that simple.
I don't claim to know it "all", but I can tell you, that I know a lot about enough, and a little about a lot.
Quality IT guys these days have loads of experience. I'm part of a team that manages 4,000 mostly Win 10 (a few Win 7, 8) and I have seen weird things on Win 10, but most (almost all) of them are stable and don't have problems updating. The rare few that do have problems updating, we simply re-image. I also realize that is not really an option for a Mom n Pop Store. On the other hand, spending $500 to repair a 5 year old computer having update problems with win 10 is also not really an option IMHO, especially when you can get a replacement for similar or slightly more. How much time / money do you spend fixing a random Win 10 update problem is up to you. But sometimes, it does take 8 hours to fix. And figuring 60/hr for quality IT support is close to that hypothetical/mythical $500 bill above.
And then after spending $500 it still might not work right. Those kind of bills are almost always able to be mitigated by proper backups (who needs those!) and understanding that data is actually more important that the Operating System. Most mom n pop outfits have to weigh the cost of having good IT vs not going broke. The problem is that is far too often a fools gamble. Don't bet against the house, it always wins.
Good IT is expensive, bad IT is costly.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If you need an IT consultant, you can't handle Linux.
They can't be fixed by any consultant, but some of the impact can be mitigated. First, Windows in a business environment should be on the "Semi-Annual Channel" not "Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted)." The Targeted one is the default, and is also the faster deployment level.
A good RMM with patch management can also be used to exercise some control over patch approvals at least on business versions of Windows (you are using Pro or Enterprise, right? Not a bunch of Windows Home systems?) and can be used to push updates on a set schedule.
fencepost
just a little off