In message , at
20:52:55 on Sat, 26 Jul 2008, dB remarked:
The other common scenario is that the consultants produce the solution
that the staff recommend, but the management weren't listening to the
staff. So everyone wins! Call it a catalyst.

Except it cost the company a lot of money for someone to state the obvious.

But without paying the money the "obvious" goes un-stated.

You probably wouldn't be surprised to learn how many managements are
convinced that no good ideas will ever come from the staff, so those
ideas end up being laundered through a consultant.

The consultant doesn't have zero work to do, of course; he has to listen
to all the staff, then select the ideas that makes sense. But the
chances are that many times there will be some non-trivial subset of the
staff who will recognise it as "their" idea.
--
Roland Perry