Quite often, clients demonstrate an idiotic streak in some of the decisions they take, especially when it comes to dealing with contractors. Ten most frustrating things that they do, include:

1.     They do not allow contractors to approach their companies directly. Clients favour agencies who would like to supply the company and do not mind paying 25% more, so that they come through agencies.

They often cite silly reasons like 'comeback' and say if the contractor goes, the agency will replace them with somebody else. I suspect a deep-seated insecurity in this sort of behaviour.

2.     They simply don’t want contractors’ advice, even when they know that contractors have many years of experience and can suggest realistic solutions for any project that they know is going wrong. Knowing this, contractors daren’t offer any advice.

3.     Their attitude de-motivate contractors. Their snide remarks about the ‘type of money’ contractors are making, is extremely de-motivating to contractors including the star performers. They somehow fail to realize that money is only important when the contract is being negotiated.

4.     They blindingly follow methodologies to the letter of the law and do not heed any advice that informs implementation. Nor is there any reality check. They fail to see that they should be focusing on the parts which are useful to the project.

5.     They encourage the development of poor quality software, by asking developers to hand over software before it is fully tested. They even resort to things like cutting out the link testing, or even the systems testing stage to save time when the project is running behind schedule.

6.     Clients make the same mistakes over and over again. They just get rid of the failed project manager and bring in a new one who makes the same mistakes. What they fail to realize is it is the system that needs changing.

7.     When recruiting for the project, they don’t ask their contractors for referrals. They ask agencies instead. Agencies charge more for this service and the candidate is not likely to be as good as the contractor who came on the recommendation of another contractor.

8.     They pay absolute fortunes to consultancies for people who are really out of university, when it makes more economic sense to hire their own graduates or take on more experienced contractors at much less cost. This speaks of their own insecurity and lack of belief in their own ability to manage a project properly.

9.     They do really stupid things like driving out all of their contractors en masse, only to take on a fresh bunch of contractors a few months later when the project falls behind. These new contractors have a learning curve and do not possess the knowledge of the system that the previous contractors had.

10.    They promote all the wrong people. They usually pick a good developer or a good analyst for the position of a Project Manager, irrespective of whether or not they have shown any inclination for being good at it. Usually, they aren’t.

Given all this, it is surprising that any project is delivered on time, adheres to budget, and is to the customers’ satisfaction.

Come to think of it, not many projects pass the test. Perhaps it’s to do with the above ten reasons.