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role of a software consultant

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Alina Florea Management Performance Coach| Alina Florea Coaching | alinaflorea.net Bucuresti, Romania
In your experience in leading or working with or from within software development teams, what is the definition you hold for a software consultant and what makes a certain software developed to stands out as an outstanding software consultant?

Thanks everyone for sharing their thoughts.
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Luis Branco CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
May be a little more accurate?
In software development there are several types of consultants
Who are you specifically referring to?
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1 reply by Alina Florea
Oct 02, 2019 6:28 AM
Alina Florea
...
Luis, I do agree with you and still I would not like to limit anyone's perspective. So, whomever have a consultant perspective, I am eager to find about it. It would help me also to refine a definition for what is perceived today as being a software development consultant. Thanks a lot!
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Alina Florea Management Performance Coach| Alina Florea Coaching | alinaflorea.net Bucuresti, Romania
Oct 02, 2019 6:16 AM
Replying to Luis Branco
...
May be a little more accurate?
In software development there are several types of consultants
Who are you specifically referring to?
Luis, I do agree with you and still I would not like to limit anyone's perspective. So, whomever have a consultant perspective, I am eager to find about it. It would help me also to refine a definition for what is perceived today as being a software development consultant. Thanks a lot!
avatar
Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
The focus is the product. In this case, the software product. With focus on that you will find different components to create the software product from architecture to delivery. At the top you can be a consultant which will cover all those components. Just to remember, being system consultant is not the same to being a software consultant. System is not about to software system.
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1 reply by Alina Florea
Oct 02, 2019 8:23 AM
Alina Florea
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Reverting to the term of "consultant", I found very often people with a "consultant" job name that are paid for doing the job instead of being paid for their knowledge. Is this an "abusive" use of the word "consultant"?
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Alina Florea Management Performance Coach| Alina Florea Coaching | alinaflorea.net Bucuresti, Romania
Oct 02, 2019 7:32 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
...
The focus is the product. In this case, the software product. With focus on that you will find different components to create the software product from architecture to delivery. At the top you can be a consultant which will cover all those components. Just to remember, being system consultant is not the same to being a software consultant. System is not about to software system.
Reverting to the term of "consultant", I found very often people with a "consultant" job name that are paid for doing the job instead of being paid for their knowledge. Is this an "abusive" use of the word "consultant"?
avatar
Alok Priyadarshi Project Manager| Tata Consulting Engineers Limited Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
Understand you are asking about specific role of consultants in your area of working. Consultants may be considered as SME. They may be expert in product development or system development or specialist of testing. Whatever role they play it should meet the project requirement, because their deployment is for very specific purpose of project.
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Anonymous
Pardon me for posting anonymously.

I believe you refer to working with software vendors whose resources have "consultant" label and accordingly charged at "consultant" level

I shared your view that the word's usage is abusive and that many consultants are software engineers who rarely meet their clients, much less consult them.
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1 reply by Alina Florea
Oct 04, 2019 9:16 AM
Alina Florea
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Thanks for sharing your view. Rather than pinning a definition for a "software consultant" I was rather looking forward to see the views and the understanding of the professionals in the industry.
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Deepesh Rammoorthy ICT Project Manager ( PMP®AgilePM®Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®))| Australian Red Cross Blood Service Tarneit, Vic, Australia
This is how I would view a Software Consultant that's worth their money .
A Software/Solution consultant may be a Subject Matter Expert on a particular software solution like an ERP or a CRM and they know how the software works functionally and how it's built architecturally.
The consultant is experienced at implementing the solution for several different firms across different industries and therefore are aware of the pitfalls of over-configuring and over-customizing commercial off the shelf systems and will always give you the right guidance and best practices for implementing the software within your own company.
They have a good technical understanding of the integration capabilities of the software with other legacy or current industry solutions .
They have great customer service and troubleshooting skills.
The Consultant can tailor their conversations depending on whether the audience is technical or non-technical.
The consultant will go above and beyond their normal duties to assist a customer and make them comfortable with the product.
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1 reply by Alina Florea
Oct 04, 2019 9:20 AM
Alina Florea
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Thank you, extremely well formulated!
avatar
Alina Florea Management Performance Coach| Alina Florea Coaching | alinaflorea.net Bucuresti, Romania
Oct 02, 2019 10:36 AM
Replying to anonymous
...
Pardon me for posting anonymously.

I believe you refer to working with software vendors whose resources have "consultant" label and accordingly charged at "consultant" level

I shared your view that the word's usage is abusive and that many consultants are software engineers who rarely meet their clients, much less consult them.
Thanks for sharing your view. Rather than pinning a definition for a "software consultant" I was rather looking forward to see the views and the understanding of the professionals in the industry.
avatar
Alina Florea Management Performance Coach| Alina Florea Coaching | alinaflorea.net Bucuresti, Romania
Oct 04, 2019 12:41 AM
Replying to Deepesh Rammoorthy
...
This is how I would view a Software Consultant that's worth their money .
A Software/Solution consultant may be a Subject Matter Expert on a particular software solution like an ERP or a CRM and they know how the software works functionally and how it's built architecturally.
The consultant is experienced at implementing the solution for several different firms across different industries and therefore are aware of the pitfalls of over-configuring and over-customizing commercial off the shelf systems and will always give you the right guidance and best practices for implementing the software within your own company.
They have a good technical understanding of the integration capabilities of the software with other legacy or current industry solutions .
They have great customer service and troubleshooting skills.
The Consultant can tailor their conversations depending on whether the audience is technical or non-technical.
The consultant will go above and beyond their normal duties to assist a customer and make them comfortable with the product.
Thank you, extremely well formulated!

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