Billing Body

This might sound a bit difficult but I will try my best to explain:

This phenomenon "Billing body" occurs when projects are "oversold". This means that too many manweeks were sold in order to reach the project target (1 manweek is 5 mandays). In case the client knows the amount of manweeks and is billed according to the actual number of consultants on the project per week, then the consultancy has an interest in filling the project with the maximum amount of consultants even though they have nothing to do but online shopping and drinking coffee, or probably some internal work.

This sounds quite funny at first, but the problem is, a consultant, especially a junior, can be fired very quickly, when suddenly the project is saturated and no new one in line. One never knows how the following day will be and whether one has work or not. Also, one's internal reputation can decline rapidly as one could be known as "billing body" only. Internal reputation is everything!

This happened in my first year. It was the 2nd project I was on and it was in the Zurich area. Clients should always control the amount of consultants so they know what they pay.

In those days I compiled a management training manual which helped me tremendously in my forthcoming projects.