Why I’m Spurning Traditional Consulting
I get a lot of questions trying to clarify what situations are a good match for my services. The answer lies in what kind of problem you’re trying to solve.
You should hire a Traditional Software Consultant when you know exactly what you need to do with your software, for example:
- an exact replica of a system from your last company
- migrating from one ERP to another with feature parity as a primary goal
- building a home for well defined or even legally mandated process
- pursuing table stakes for your industry
- need a set of hands for your feature factory

You should hire Muse Operations when you need help figuring out how your custom software will look in six months:
- scaling a company in hypergrowth
- complex/messy/innovative operational challenges
- reenvisioning workflows or processes
- shifting priorities
- unknown future state
Why?
Because the approach should match the problem.
I’ve italicized what I’m doing differently than traditional consulting.
Traditional style vs. Muse Operations
Waterfall-style project management
Modern, flow-based project management
5+ hrs of initial discovery, avoiding new changes to SOW
Continuous, high touch discovery (usually via Slack)
100–300+ hr, ~$50k+ SOW, enforced minimum
~25hr, $6k SOW with client option remove/add scope
Feature-centric deliverables
Outcome-centric deliverables
Estimate sandbagging
Best efforts estimation
Hi-res work sequencing & deadlines
Open-ended priority, wary of deadlines
Incentive to scope creep
Incentive to earn follow-on work
Certified career admins are hammers to which everything looks like a nail
Career operators and product managers have learned to use iterative, humble approaches to new problems
Are you doing something innovative?
Need to customize some software to do it? Drop me a line at: inquiries@museoperations.com
…or check out museoperations.com.
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