Open the website of any consulting firm. Then open the next one. And the one after that.
You'll find: best practices. Methodologies. Team expertise. Maybe some industry insights. Everything polished. Everything pristine. About as glossy as the slide decks presented as project deliverables at the end of an engagement — beautifully designed, substantively empty.
What you won't find: honesty.
What nobody writes
No consultant writes about what actually goes wrong. About the client's perspective — not the version the consultant prefers, but the real one. About projects that drag on because nobody has an interest in them ending. About tenders where the outcome is already decided. About consultants who after three months haven't taken a single concrete step but left behind a fully populated Confluence. About meetings that spawn more meetings.
All of this exists. Everyone in the industry knows it. But nobody writes about it — too much marketing logic, too much fear for their reputation, too much pressure to keep up appearances.
That's exactly why MacNorris exists. And that's exactly why this blog exists.
What no-bullshit consulting actually means
The term gets used a lot. "We're different." "We speak plainly." "No buzzwords here."
And then comes the 80-page final report.
No-bullshit consulting isn't about a different communication format. It's about a different fundamental mindset. Specifically this one: a problem is only solved when it's actually solved — not when it's been documented, presented, or put on a roadmap.
That sounds obvious. It isn't. Traditional consulting earns money from time, not results. The longer a project runs, the better for the firm. That's not an accusation — it's a business model. But it explains why so many projects never really end, and why so many problems are still there after the engagement closes.
We're not trying to stay in a project as long as possible. We're trying to find the best solution as fast as possible. A problem solved in two weeks beats one that gets "strategically recommended" over six months.
We're not consultants. We're problem-solvers.
That's not a tagline. It's the only difference that matters.
We're wired differently — and that comes from experience
This didn't come from a positioning exercise. It came from years in projects where we noticed: most consultants don't actually want to solve the problem. They want to stay with the problem.
We don't.
Over the years we've seen things that still stay with us. Consultants who clearly had no idea but presented with complete confidence. Clients who knew they were being strung along but kept going because switching seemed too much effort. Projects where the actual problem was never once addressed because nobody involved had any interest in it being found.
These experiences shaped MacNorris. Not as a reaction to bad consultants — but as a clear decision about what we want to be. And what we don't.
What this blog is going to be
Not another consulting blog full of best practices nobody needs.
What you'll find here are things we've actually encountered in practice. Real situations. Real problems. What worked and what didn't — without the softening. Opinions on the consultant behavior we've seen over the years. Stories from projects told the way they actually happened.
Not to embarrass anyone. But because transparency is the only thing that makes this industry better over time.
We don't publish on a content calendar. We publish when we've experienced something worth writing down. When a problem got solved. When we ran into something others should know about. When we have an opinion that's uncomfortable but needs saying.
Authentic. Honest. Unfiltered.
If that resonates — you're in the right place. And if you have a problem that's been bothering you for a while: get in touch. That's exactly what we're here for.
— Robert
