Would an NFL coach field 11 quarterbacks on offense, defense or special teams? Of course not - he has specialists - running backs, cornerbacks, place kickers etc. Besides, having so many quarterbacks would cause all kinds of salary cap issues given that position's salary ranges - not to mention ego problems.
But that is the scenario with many systems integration projects. Clients are sold SAP or Siebel "experts" as the entire project team when 60 to 70% of the effort of the project has more to do with data conversion/cleansing, training, testing, coding, infrastructure sizing and tuning etc.
Almost a decade ago at Gartner I proposed an implementation model where these "horizontal" tasks could be done in specialist factories. So a team of specialists could be working with multiple clients on conversion/cleansing issues. They would be intimately familiar with automated conversion tools, common data hygiene issues, the majority of from/to definitions - and their economics could be shared across clients. Ditto for testing and other teams.
But no - SIs still insist on the same team doing the design, the SAP configuration, the conversion, the testing etc...11 expensive quarterbacks doing what other specialists could be doing better and cheaper...
