GotoDBA Becoming a DBA Consultant – Different Types of Projects for a Consultant

Becoming a DBA Consultant – Different Types of Projects for a Consultant

Previous post in the series: Before You Become an Independent Consultant

In this post I would like to explain about different types of contracts you will likely have as a consultant, the pros and cons of each type and some general information about the topic. I’ve touched on this topic very briefly when I talked about “income stability” in the previous post, here I’ll dive deeper into this topic.

Full-Time Long-Term Projects

The easiest type to explain is the full-time long-term projects. These projects are full time (like regular employment) working for a specific company for anything between 3 months and a year (this is the common time frame), usually with an option to extend the contract.

These, in my opinion anyway, are not really consultant positions. These are more of a contractor position, and they are basically being an employee without being an employee. This type of project is very common lately, and I have to admit that I don’t really like it. Being a consultant means that you manage your own time, clients, and projects. The full-time long-term contractor roles take that flexibility away from you as you are managed completely by one client, but without the additional benefits of being an employee, such as paid time off, benefits (like pension, unemployment insurance, health insurance, etc.), and usually no promotions are available. There is income stability (until the project ends), and it’s usually more rewarding financially than being an employee, but I don’t think it is usually high enough to compensate for the lack of other benefits. Personally, I have turned down quite a few of these offers for two reasons. First, accepting such a position would mean letting all of my current clients go, and working without benefits, without flexibility, and with a commitment for only a specified amount of time, at the end of which I would have to find a new contract or new clients. Second, the hourly rate was lower than what I usually charge, and even though the total monthly income would probably be a little bit higher (just because of the stability and the reduced “no-income work”), it wasn’t enough to convince me to accept these positions.

Full-Time Short-Term Projects

These are full time projects, but for short periods of a few days to a couple of weeks. These are possible if you can put off projects for existing clients for a week or two (which is usually the case). These projects can provide a great income and be very interesting and challenging. Example projects can be designing and implementing a solution (like DR or RAC), helping developers with a specific project, or anything else that can be done in a few days.

In a few days of work you will need to provide a lot of value, hence these projects usually require a highly skilled professional. Because of the requirement for a highly skilled individual, the rate can be relatively high as well.

The difficulty of these projects is the constant change. Short projects require you to spend more time in finding new projects and clients all the time (which can accumulate to a lot of “no income work” as I discussed in the previous post).

Part-Time Long-Term Projects

This is my holy grail for consulting work, and the type of projects I like the most. These are projects that you work on part of the time, but last for a long time. The definition of “part time” can vary with different clients and can range from a more fixed definition (such as Mondays and Wednesdays every week) to a certain number of hours per week/month, etc.

These projects bring you both stability and flexibility. You know that there is a predictable amount of income per month, and you can still have time to do other things (for other projects or “no income work”).

During my career, some of my part-time long-term projects were not as challenging as the next type of projects I will discuss, but getting to know the people and the environment you work with for a long time makes you more comfortable, less stressed, and it helps keep us sane. If you physically go to the client, you feel welcomed and “part of the team” and it’s really great.

Emergency Projects

These are the most interesting and challenging projects (usually), but they are also the hardest. In these projects you are called in to solve a specific problem, or during a real crisis.

With regards to compensation, these are the ones that you can charge the most for. As I mentioned in previous posts, you don’t have a long term relationship here, and nothing guarantees that this will evolve into a longer-term project (despite what the client says). Also, these tasks usually require a high level of expertise and if the client HAS to find a solution, they will be more willing to pay for experts.

However, it’s not easy: on the technical side, you should be able to solve the problem, or at least find it. On the non-technical side, you will be engaging with new people (usually without enough time to learn how to work with their individual personalities), you’ll need to assess the political situation in the organization quickly and handle it the right way (more about this in the future). Also, the fact that you are there for this one specific task means that you probably won’t have your own desk/space. You may be working on someone else’s computer and people might stand behind you and watch everything you do. This is uncomfortable and stressful (like when you open Google to look up something, which is completely legit, but might seem strange to some people around you).

So to sum this up, these projects are fun, interesting and rewarding (both personally and financially), but also exhausting. During times that I mostly worked on this type of projects, I was drained and completely worn out. It’s important to have some longer-term projects and relationships with the clients for stability and sanity.

Summary

To sum this up, consultants have flexibility with their time, and different companies have different needs. This is why you can find yourself working for different clients in different capacities. Here is a summary of the different relationship types:

  • Long term contracts – these are great for your sanity and for developing a real understanding of the client. They also provide a more stable income and schedule.
  • Short term contracts – as these projects are short, it requires more work to get new ones all the time. The benefits of short term projects are more time flexibility and higher rates. They are usually more challenging, and require a higher level of expertise.

Rates and Contract Related Issues

Now a few points about preparing a contract and rates for these types of projects:

  • As I said above, long term projects should have lower rates, as the incentives are there for both sides to engage in this type of project – for you, these projects are a stable income and for the client, they get to pay a bit less per hour if they commit to a steady stream of work for you.
  • Distance/Commute – if you need to be physically present at a client’s site, check the commute time. For shorter projects or clients located far away I add a clause in the contract about commuting time. Usually it’s acceptable to charge for half the time (so if you drive 1 hour each direction, you add 1 hour of driving time in total for a visit).
  • Minimum time – this is very important for emergency projects. A client calls you with a problem, you stop what you are doing, get ready, drive there and then find the problem within one hour and you leave. This is often not worth the effort from a compensation perspective. I usually have 4-hour minimum charge per visit. If I managed to solve the problem in an hour, they still have 3 hours of my time. If they use it or not, that’s their decision – I’m there and willing to stay the 3 more hours that I charge for (for example to take a look at other environments, check performance, review plans for upcoming upgrades or train them on a specific technology).
  • Another thing to discuss with the client is lunch breaks to make sure you are on the same page. Does the client have a paid lunch time policy? For example, if you are there from 9am to 4pm and eat lunch for half an hour, do you charge for 7 hours or only for 6.5?

I think this pretty much covers the logistics and planning of the main different types of projects you may do as a consultant. Of course there may be exceptions and things might look different, but I think this is a good baseline and you can start with it and make changes based on your specific situation and projects.

What do you think? Do you have anything to add or questions about projects as a consultant? Feel free to leave a comment or contact me using the contact page.

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