One of the main problems with consultants is that they can be expensive, and they may not answer the question that you've asked. For example, we recently reviewed a technical report by an esteemed scientist that was over 100 pages long and didn't answer the question that the client asked, but it did have a whole raft of recommendations for further work! The reason this is a problem is that you're simply not getting what you've paid for. At Instream, we avoid that problem by making sure that the client’s question is clearly stated up front in our report, that it's answered in the report, and that we have an executive summary with the question and the answer up front. We review every piece of advice that goes out to ensure this is the case.