Further Reduction in Profit

The second cost to the consultant, which is related to the first eost, occurs during the project. Assuming that we have been fortunate (or unfortunate ) to be selected based on our low bid, whieh probably included a less-than-normal profit, we now begin to provide the promised scope and deliverables. Our intent is to do so in as bare bones a manner as possible. 

As we proceed, however, those important project elements we omitted to yield the lowest bid, simply do not go away. They are now planted in our subconscious mind and keep creeping into our conscious mind. We try to clip them but many of us, remembering what we left out when preparing the price-base proposal and possibly driven by ethical concerns, succumb to the temptation to put some of those valuable elements back into the project. 

Maybe we are compensated for some of this consultant-driven scope creep because we are able to convince the client, owner, or customer that the additions are warranted. In many cases, we unilaterally add services for which we are not compensated and lose monetarily. Our firm, in effect, further reduces its profit margin or effective multiplier on the project or our effective hourly rate declines even more. This is a monetary cost attributed to our choosing to participate in PBS it comes out of our pockets. 

The third consultant cost arises when our portion of the project, be it a study, a plan, a design, construction, manufactured product, a process, or workshop is completed. 

Maybe it begins even before our work is done. This cost emanates from the client, owner, or customer increasingly realizing that the project is deficient. Perhaps citizens and their elected representatives are expressing opposition to the project. In retrospect, stakeholder participation should have been an element of the project. Or maybe insightful decision makers are asking questions about other options considered and the real or life cycle-cost of the option that was selected from the outset. More analyses should have been conducted. Or in-house workshop participants complain that the outside facilitator was not aware of important organizational issues and, therefore, the workshop fell far short of expectations. 

---