Are you outing yourself doing a bad job? :P
My big take away from being given a management job on a sinking ship IT transformation was: You've got to kill and eat your pets. If the IT transformation really is that important than a lack of success should be an existential threat to the business and everyone doing it. Maybe this means that big projects never happen, and maybe that'd be a good thing. But where I work, we just did 7 years to have the last 2 be a death march where everything delivered was under cooked.
I feel like the lack of a real embrace of a burning deck is what did it.
I'd try and win success with a 'too good to pass on' bonus that's paid 2 years after delivery. But I know in this Agile world, getting a set of agreed on requirements is just impossible.
So I'm back to championing roadmaps and small projects with small teams.
The job is only as good as the decisions made.
I know your right, that consultant is a fancy word for contract staff. But what I would expect form consultants is consulting. Even if it causes grief. I've had very good experiences with performance and database engineer's who came onboard and set us all straight. The advantage of being an outsider is not drinking the koolaide.
I'm surprised, but also not, that that's not more latitude given or taken.
My own favourite are the swashbuckling, resume-impressing "transformation" programmes in big corporations and their corollary "consultancy debt" which involve much scratching of heads by the hoi-polloi at the time of execution, and often severely depleted and inadequate services long after the debtors have fled the scene...