What I love most about consulting and high-level project management is the opportunity to study unique situations, analyze them, investigate potential methods for accomplishing goals (perhaps identifying new opportunities), and create solutions, especially ones where we can be first.
OTOH, they always are built from activities someone developed in the past and ideas someone had before…which of course: were built from what came before them.
Having the joy to get new, big, complex puzzles to solve and getting paid well to do well is so much fun, it can be easy to overlook downsides. Often, they never occur to anyone on the team, like when we developed the most efficient online crediting process in history.
In the middle of an online purchase, college students could apply and get authorized for a line of credit in less than 30 seconds. This time constraint was paramount, because after 28 seconds, abandonment rates skyrocket.
Coordinating a global network of data centers to make this happen was exhilarating as we inched closer to meeting that target, and finally we succeeded.
In a few years, it became clear that this system contributed to a ballooning student debt crisis that financially enslaved masses of college students…for decades. Technology has incredible power, and our risk management ought to scale proportionately with that power.
With some improved social awareness of which projects are likely to actually move the needle toward a better future overall, my focus has turned more toward science and the public sector.
Another benefit from lots of experience with different clients and industries is a broadened spectrum of tools available to create, deeper understanding of them, and improved skill in taking advantage of them.
This enables construction of amazing systems for information, decisions, risk management, data, and most thrilling: prediction – a the ability to see into the future and know what will happen. It’s like sorcery.
Building systems to do this – being the first to discover a fact about the world or realize something is going to happen is an absolute thrill – and I LOVE IT!!
”You know, in 5 minutes? You just figured out something that took my team 2 weeks.
Steven KwastLieutenant General, United States Air Force
It pays well, and provides unbelievable value to clients…Who cannot love that?
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