Technology consulting has changed a lot in 20 years, but the human problem has been stubborn.
The dot-com boom, cloud, mobile, and AI all changed the tools. They changed expectations too. Clients now expect usable value earlier, sometimes in the first sprint. That pressure is healthy when it forces clarity. It is dangerous when it rewards visible output before the organization agrees on what matters.
The consultant's durable job is translation.
That sounds less glamorous than architecture, but it is often more important. Sales, operations, finance, product, and engineering can all use the same words and mean different things. They can agree in the meeting and then fund five different interpretations. The consultant becomes part technologist, part facilitator, part marriage counselor for departments that have learned to work around each other.
Scale does not remove the problem. Lean firms and Big Four teams hit the same dynamics at different volume. One has fewer people. The other has more process. Neither escapes the need to keep the work simple enough to operate.
That is why "Keep It Simple, Stupid" keeps aging well. Most systems do not need Netflix-scale complexity. They need a clear problem, a path to value, and fewer clever decisions that future teams have to decode.
The tools changed. The translation bill is still due.
Related episode: Consulting Past, Present, and Future With Jeff Treuting.
