Blog post: Preparing the Terrain

[oliverbarnes]

For successful consulting engagements. Just an outline for approval for now, I'm working on fleshing it out.

Please let me know of any other points worth touching on, within this topic

[marcoow]

I mean there's not a whole lot there yet :) but I think the topic is interesting. I'd make sure to frame it for the right audience though. Instead of making this about what a consultancy should do, I'd say it should be about what we do and what our clients or companies working with consultancies in general can do to support making these projects successes.

[beerinho]

It would also be interesting to see some examples of good ways to get the client to buy-in

[KevinBongart]

@oliverbarnes The overall topic and structure is good to me, the content too. However, because it's consulting jargon, it will all sound very abstract to the audience. We're "brought in to deliver business value" 😆, that's as abstract as it gets but going more specific and we're describing our day-to-day client work ("leading an architecture meeting to get DevOps buy-in on combining services into a monolith"… that's too specific for instance!).

IMO, what could invite readers in without feeling too abstract is leading sections with examples, not necessarily Mainmatter-related.

Starting the whole post with something like this:

"Ugh, leadership is bringing in a bunch of consultants from Big Co to audit the team and identify inefficiencies across the team… this doesn't sound good, right?"
Of course this will look like bad news to the client's team. Audit! Inefficiencies! Changes suggested by outsiders! The team is going to resist and prevent the implementation of positive changes. They would need a very good reason to be on board… and that's called team buy-in.

Even poking fun at consultants in general, and using the post as a way to highlight the care we put into helping the team find value in identifying and implementing change.

[oliverbarnes]

Starting the whole post with something like this:

totally agree, it'd be a lot more fun. we could even use an image of an incoming pirate ship 🏴‍☠️

[oliverbarnes]

@KevinBongart I haven't got much creative juice these days, so I just added your own blurb to try it on for size, and polished some more.

[emmasofiah2o]

Just one small adjustment, but this is overall very well written :). I do agree that it sounds very technical, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's bad. We can discuss some ways to make it less formal tho, if you'd like.

[marcoow]

I'd be careful to not make this seem like it's mostly about what we need/want from the client (and what reads a bit like frustration about particular projects perhaps) but also/mainly about what we do to make projects collaborative and foster team buy-in, what the objectively valid reasons are for getting in outsiders for certain things rather than handling everything internally, etc.

[oliverbarnes]

Just one small adjustment, but this is overall very well written :). I do agree that it sounds very technical, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's bad. We can discuss some ways to make it less formal tho, if you'd like.

@emmasofiah2o thanks, yes I would :) I'm going to read with fresh yes as well, and try a more conversational tone.

I'd be careful to not make this seem like it's mostly about what we need/want from the client (and what reads a bit like frustration about particular projects perhaps) but also/mainly about what we do to make projects collaborative and foster team buy-in

@marcoow yeah, the intention was for this to be a guide for managers on how to best bring us in. Without the frustration part, of course. Would it help it if it were less about what we need/want and more about a recommendation for best return over investment?

what the objectively valid reasons are for getting in outsiders for certain things rather than handling everything internally, etc.

👍 I actually had this point noted for a separate blog post, but I can see how it can fit here. Will add it in

[marcoow]

I think what I'm saying is I'd also add what we do to foster buy-in.

[oliverbarnes]

Let me know if 696d5a5 and 092c179 help - I'm also pairing with Emma an hour from now to polish this together

[marcoow]

I think this should be more about what we do which is:

• make clear we have an outside view, we understand the status quo is there for a reason but we don't know these reasons necessarily and can therefore ask questions more easily, also we weren't there during the history (doesn't mean we're not responsible but means we can have a clearer view that's not tainted by all the historic knowledge)
• we see more companies and teams than people who work at product companies for a long time; we allow clients to benefits from all these experiences and things that we see that work/don't work that they otherwise don't have access to
• when assessing/transforming, it's always super important to make clear that this is not a thread but an opportunity for everyone to make their (work) lives better which we foster by organizing workshops, team events, etc.

[oliverbarnes]

I think this should be more about what we do which is:

• make clear we have an outside view, we understand the status quo is there for a reason but we don't know these reasons necessarily and can therefore ask questions more easily, also we weren't there during the history (doesn't mean we're not responsible but means we can have a clearer view that's not tainted by all the historic knowledge)
• we see more companies and teams than people who work at product companies for a long time; we allow clients to benefits from all these experiences and things that we see that work/don't work that they otherwise don't have access to
• when assessing/transforming, it's always super important to make clear that this is not a thread but an opportunity for everyone to make their (work) lives better which we foster by organizing workshops, team events, etc.

Will incorporate

[marcoow]

let's get the build fixed so we can see the preview

[marcoow]

I think this is good now 👍

[oliverbarnes]

let's get the build fixed so we can see the preview

I'll go through the build breakage, but I'm guessing the linting is broken removed the line breaks to comply with Chris' proposed new convention here: #2492

Could we get that merged so I can rebase on top of it?

addressed

[oliverbarnes]

Yeah, ran prettier --write src/posts/2024-05-21-team-buy-in.md and it added a bunch of line breaks

[marcoow]

there's actual build errors – look at the log of any of the GitHub Actions jobs

[oliverbarnes]

Most build jobs fixed, but I can't access Percy after signing up with google, and it's not immediately clear to me what needs to happen in the Gravity dashboard (maybe somebody else needs to approve it?).

I've updated the blog date to Monday, July 29th btw

[oliverbarnes]

@marcoow just need an approval to ship - cc @IdeliaRisella