Consulting would not be easy for me

Seeing my new blog and podcast, three different people this week have asked me if I was considering doing some consulting on the side.

I'd love to—but there are two major obstacles to the idea: (1) I'm too busy at Decade, and (2) the consulting industry would absolutely hate me.

• I'm too busy.

My team has worked hard to get where we are, and I have no intention of abandoning them now, and—in addition to acting as coach and confidant to my two teams—I am an active member of the management team and an in-house Scrum consultant to at least two other Decade teams.

Oh, and I still code from time to time.

• Besides that, the consulting industry would hate me.

Most process-improvement-type consultants charge by the hour. From the perspective of truth, trust, and transparency that is a ridiculous idea.

In Scrum-talk, your pigs and chickens would be guarded by a wolf!

Transparency is the most important factor to earning trust. If someone has agreed to do X (some goal based on expected business value) to assist you with team-building, then they must charge X. Otherwise, the wolf has no incentive to solve the problem in a timely fashion. The wolf will not commit—take ownership of the problem.

In fact, if the wolf is being paid by the hour, solving your problem would put him out of work. Not only does the consultant not have an incentive to commit, he or she actually has an incentive not to commit.

So, you see, even if I had time to help another company, the consulting industry would have nothing to do with me.