“I have never believed in the Wizard of Oz theory of consulting, that I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and that everyone around me is kind of a backbencher.”
David Axelrod.
Today I’ll give away my model for delivering consultancy on any OSS project, no matter what shape or size. Promise not to tell anyone else, especially the naysayers who claim there is no such thing.
Ok, here it is:
- Perform current situation analysis
- Perform desired future-state analysis
- Perform a gap analysis (identifying the delta between 1 and 2)
- Provide recommendations (how to implement the gaps)
Then that leads to the implementation stages (hopefully).
Phew! Very cerebral right? Okay, okay so it’s a little too high-level to be helpful?
Below the high-level is where every single OSS project diverges from every other one.
None have an identical current state, even within the same company because the current state is always in flux, even if that’s just at the level of the ever-changing data in the production database.
None have an identical end state because every project has a different set of objectives in mind although they can be very similar in the case where the same “service” is being implemented in multiple jurisdictions.
Having done many OSS consultancies now, I have noticed that despite the differences, there are some commonalities. The following links provide links to some of the approaches and tools that I often use:
https://passionateaboutoss.com/oss-implementations/
https://passionateaboutoss.com/tools/
I hope they help take you down to the next level of consultancy below the four high-level steps shown above.