The Big Cull: Goodbye, Type A People Who Make the Government Chug Along
March 3, 2025
The work of a real, live dinobaby. Sorry, no smart software involved. Whuff, whuff. That’s the sound of my swishing dino tail. Whuff.
I used to work at a couple of big time consulting firms in Washington, DC. Both were populated with the Googlers of that time. The blue chip consulting firm boasted a wider range of experts than the nuclear consulting outfit. There were some lessons I learned beginning with my first day on the job in the early 1970s. Here are three:
- Most of the Federal government operates because of big time consulting firms which do “work” and show up for meetings with government professionals
- Government professionals manage big time consulting firms’ projects with much of the work day associated with these projects and assorted fire drills related to non consulting firm work
- Government workers support, provide input, and take credit or avoid blame for work involving big time consulting firms. These individuals are involved in undertaking tasks not assigned to consulting firms and doing the necessary administrative and support work for big time consulting firm projects.
A big time consulting professional has learned that her $2.5 billion project has been cancelled. The contract workers are now coming toward her, and they are a bit agitated because they have been terminated. Thanks, OpenAI. Too bad about your being “out of GPUs.” Planning is sometimes helpful.
There were some other things I learned in 1972, but these three insights appear to have had sticking power. Whenever I interacted with the US federal government, I kept the rules in mind and followed them for a number of not-do-important projects.
This brings me to the article in what is now called Nextgov FCW. I think “FCW” means or meant Federal Computer Week. The story which I received from a colleague who pays a heck of a lot more attention to the federal government than I do caught my attention.
[Note: This article’s link was sometimes working and sometimes not working. If you 404, you will have do do some old fashioned research.] “Trump Administration Asks Agencies to Cull Consultants” says:
The acting head of the General Services Administration, Stephen Ehikian, asked “agency senior procurement executive[s]” to review their consulting contracts with the 10 companies the administration deemed the highest paid using procurement data — Deloitte, Accenture Federal Services, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Leidos, Guidehouse, Hill Mission Technologies Corp., Science Applications International Corporation, CGI Federal and International Business Machines Corporation — in a memo dated Feb. 26 obtained by Nextgov/FCW. Those 10 companies “are set to receive over $65 billion in fees in 2025 and future years,” Ehikian wrote. “This needs to, and must, change,” he added in bold.
Mr. Ehikian’s GSA biography states:
Stephen Ehikian currently serves as Acting Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the General Services Administration. Stephen is a serial entrepreneur in the software industry who has successfully built and sold two companies focused on sales and customer service to Salesforce (Airkit.ai in 2023 and RelateIQ in 2014). He most recently served as Vice President of AI Products and has a strong record of identifying next-generation technology. He is committed to accelerating the adoption of technology throughout government, driving maximum efficiency in government procurement for the benefit of all taxpayers, and will be working closely with the DOGE team to do so. Stephen graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics and earned an MBA from Stanford University.
The firms identified in the passage from Nextgov would have viewed a person with Mr. Ehikian’s credentials as a potential candidate for a job. In the 1970s, an individuals with prior business experience and an MBA would have been added as an associate and assigned to project teams. He would have attended one of the big time consulting firms’ “charm schools.” The idea at the firm which employed me was that each big time consulting firm had a certain way of presenting information, codes of conduct, rules of engagement with prospects and clients, and even the way to dress.
Today I am not sure what a managing partner would assign a person like Mr. Ehikian to undertake. My initial thought is that I am a dinobaby and don’t have a clue about how one of the big time firms in the passage listing companies with multi billions of US government contracts operates. I don’t think too much would change because at the firm where I labored for a number of years much of the methodology was nailed down by 1920 and persisted for 50 years when I arrived. Now 50 years from the date of my arrival, I would be dollars to donuts that the procedures, the systems, and the methods were quite similar. If a procedure works, why change it dramatically. Incremental improvements will get the contract signed. The big time consulting firms have a culture and acculturation is important to these firms’ success.
The cited Nextgov article reports:
The notice comes alongside a new executive order directing agencies to build centralized tech to record all payments issued through contracts and grants, along with justification for those payments. Agency leaders were also told to review all grants and contracts within 30 days and terminate or modify them to reduce spending under that executive order.
This project to “build centralized technology to record all payments issued through contracts and grants” is exactly the type of work that some of the big time consulting firms identified can do. I know that some government entities have the expertise to create this type of system. However, given the time windows, the different departments and cross departmental activities, and the accounting and database hoops that must be navigated, the order to “build centralized technology to record all payments” is a very big job. (That’s why big time consulting firms exist. The US federal government has not developed the pools of expensive and specialized talent to do some big jobs.) I have worked on not-too-important jobs, and I found that just do it was easier said than done.
Several observations:
- I am delighted that I am no longer working at either of the big time consulting firms which used to employ me. At age 80, I don’t have the stamina to participate in the intense, contentious, what are we going to do meetings that are going to ruin many consulting firms’ weekends.
- I am not sure what will happen when the consulting firms’ employees and contractors’ just stop work. Typically, when there is not billing, people are terminated. Bang. Yes, just like that. Maybe today’s work world is a kinder and gentler place, but I am not sure about that.
- The impact on citizens and other firms dependent on the big time consulting firms’ projects is likely to chug along with not much visible change. Then just like the banking outages today (February 28, 2024) in the UK, systems and services will begin to exhibit issues. Some may just outright fail without the ministrations of consulting firm personnel.
- Figuring out which project is mission critical and which is not may be more difficult than replacing a broken MacBook Pro at the Apple Store in the old Carnegie Library Building on K Street. Decisions like these were typical of the projects that big time consulting firms were set up to handle with aplomb. A mistake may take months to surface. If several pop up in one week, excitement will ensue. That thinking for the future is what big time consulting firms do as part of their work. Pulling a plug on an overheating iron in a DC hotel is easy. Pulling a plug on a consulting firm is different for many reasons.
Net net: The next few months will be interesting. I have my eye on the big time consulting firms. I am also watching how the IRS and Social Security System computer infrastructure works. I want to know but no longer will be able to get the information about the management of devices in the arsenal not too far from a famous New Jersey golf course. I wonder about the support of certain military equipment outside the US. I am doing a lot of wondering.
That is fine for me. I am a dinobaby. For others in the big time consulting game and the US government professionals who are involved with these service firms’ contracts, life is a bit more interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2025
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