Consulting on Trayix

Why specialists are winning

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000

One industry forecast expects the specialized consulting segment to grow 12–15% annually through 2026, while generalist firms see slower growth or contraction. The pattern matches what we hear from clients: they’d rather hire a team that has solved their exact problem many times than one that can talk about everything.

Why depth beats breadth

Complexity is part of it. When a problem involves a portfolio process, a PMO redesign, or putting AI into delivery work, a generalist spends the first weeks learning what a specialist already knows. Clients also now have in-house capability and are asking harder questions about value for money. A specialist can show where the extra experience will pay off. A generalist often can’t, because the offering is broad enough to describe almost anything.

Value for money when clients build in-house capability

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 09:00:00 +0000

More of our clients now run their own project management office (PMO) and delivery teams, and many of them look hard at every consulting invoice. Some consultants read that as a threat. We read it as a sign that clients have learned what good looks like, and we think that’s healthy for everyone, including us.

What clients are asking

When a client pushes back on fees, the question underneath is usually “What do we get for this that we can’t get ourselves?” It’s a fair question. A consultant who can’t answer it clearly should expect to lose the work, and probably deserves to.

The diamond-shaped consulting team

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 09:00:00 +0000

For decades, the consulting firm has looked like a pyramid. A few partners sit at the top, a layer of managers sits in the middle, and a wide base of junior staff does the research, builds the slides, and keeps the project coordinated. The model worked because the base was affordable and the work was plentiful. Now that AI and better tools absorb much of that base-level work, the shape is changing into a diamond.

Shorter engagements, clearer outcomes

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The 18-month consulting engagement, billed by the hour with a team of a dozen, is getting harder to sell. Industry commentary points to shorter project cycles, and to a growing interest in outcome-based and even revenue-share pricing. Clients want to know what they’re buying, and they’d like to stop paying for effort that doesn’t move a number they care about. We think that’s a reasonable thing to ask.

Why the old model is under pressure

Long time-and-materials contracts were common during the agile transformation years. They fit a world where the destination was unclear and the journey was the product. But they put all the financial risk on the client. If the work takes longer, the client pays more. The consultant’s incentive, however well meant, is to stay busy.

Lessons from a decade of transformations

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 09:00:00 +0000

The decade is almost over, and looking back, a lot has changed in how organizations manage work. Agile moved from small software teams to the enterprise. “Digital transformation” became a board-level phrase. Cloud tools replaced spreadsheets, and the PMO started talking about value. We’ve worked on many of these changes, and a few lessons keep coming back.

Frameworks don’t transform; leadership and funding do

Early in the decade, many organizations adopted a scaling framework and expected change to follow. It rarely did on its own. Frameworks give you a shared vocabulary and a starting structure. They don’t change how budgets are approved, how managers behave, or what executives reward. Where transformations worked, leaders changed those things: they funded teams for the long term, accepted smaller releases, and asked different questions in reviews. Where leaders didn’t, the new roles and ceremonies sat on top of the old habits.

When an agile transformation stalls

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:00:00 +0000

The first six months of an agile transformation are usually the easy part. There is a kickoff, a round of training, a few teams producing working software every two weeks, and a sponsor who likes the energy. Then the energy fades. Teams go through the motions, and the old way of working quietly returns.

We see the same stall patterns again and again. Most are organizational, not technical, which is why they’re easy to miss from inside a team.

Contracts that fit agile work

Wed, 18 Nov 2015 09:00:00 +0000

You can’t write a fixed-scope, fixed-price contract for work whose point is to change the scope as you learn. Yet many agile engagements still arrive wrapped in exactly that kind of paper. The contract and the method pull in opposite directions, and the people in the middle pay for it.

Because we are a consulting firm, we should be candid: how you pay us changes how we behave. Here are the common options and what each does to incentives.