I captioned this picture after finding it and being reminded of Weinberg’s Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
And then I thought: Didn’t he have some clever quips about consulting? A little searching found these gems I’d read about and forgotten:
Ah, Weinberg’s Laws of Consulting, from his 1985 book, The Secrets of Consulting:
- There’s always a problem, with the corollary “Never promise more than 10% improvement”
- It’s always a people problem, with the corollary “Whatever they’re doing, advise them to do something else”
- They’re paying you by the hour, not the solution, with the corollary “You’ll never accomplish anything if you care who gets credit”
For more of Jerry Weinberg’s wisdom on consulting (and writing, too!), check out his Secrets of Writing and Consulting blog.