Cardinal Rule #1 - Thou shalt not make **** up

As promised, here is one recent example of what happens when consultants pull recommendations from thin air and do not show their thinking (It's like "showing your work" on a math exam.)

In phase two of a transformation project, the consulting team issued a report of recommendations to the client. One section of this report recommended a ratio of customer service reps to customers of 1:260. This recommendation had zero supporting material. Zilch, nada, nothing, not one iota, not even a footnote. There was no data to back it up in any appendix, no findings nor conclusions. However, being blended with hundreds of other recommendations in that report, the ratio did not draw any attention or become a problem until the next phase of the project, Design.

Part of the Design phase was a new organization design which included the same recommended ratio, but thus time it stuck out like a sore thumb. For obvious reasons, the client reacted strongly to the recommendation and naturally rejected it because it was unsupported.

There was no continuity on the project team from phases 2 to 3, so the phase 3 team had to go back to the primary author of the phase 2 report who then assembled a supporting argument for the recommendation after the fact. This unplanned "revisitation" put the project behind schedule and jeopardized the budget. When the phase 3 project manager finally presented the new organization design, everyone including the steering committee was aware of what had happened. What impact do you think this had on the consulting team's reputation and relationship with the client?