"Huge sums of money can be wasted before the project is killed," he says. "When both sides are empty suits, the project can go on so long that it drains the life out of the company."
The fix: Drive a stake into it. Create a reasonable but short deadline for a definitive action, result, or concrete plan to limit the damage and see where you stand, says Lowe.
"A measurable result by a specific date can be used as a stake in the ground to provide an anchor for the project," he says. "This anchor can serve as a short-term target or goal, a feasibility test for a proposed solution, a competency test of those involved, a visible measure of progress, and a deterrent to 'analysis paralysis'."
And if you don't?
"A committee with no incentive or deadline to act and little technical qualification may be quite content to bleed money to vampires until the original issue either goes away on its own or becomes someone else's problem."
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This article, "7 dirty consultant tricks (and how to avoid them)," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.