Obviously, in consulting, the billable hour/day/etc is the almighty metric. Have any of you implemented a "labs" concept to allow employees to experiment with new ideas/tech? If so, how have you managed it? (e.g. % time ala Google, etc.)
I have worked for two consulting firms. Neither of them had any budget for work that wasn't billable directly to a client.<p>At the first, Medior Inc. of San Mateo (later acquired by AOL), I invented a novel, lossless bitmap compressor as a result of our running out of space for the "assets" on a multimedia CD-ROM.<p>However my invention was purely conceptual. I needed time to actually implement it, as well as to design the file format.<p>I had quite a hard time convincing the management to let me do that. Eventually they came around because they realized the expense of my time could qualify for the US IRS Research Tax Credit (not a deduction, credits are better).<p>However, they gave me precisely three weeks. While I did get my code to work really well, I could have gotten it to work a lot better, had I been given more than three weeks. For example I only supported 8-bit images. It would have been straightforward to handle 24-bit, but Medior didn't give me time to look into that.<p>I myself am a one-man consulting firm. I spend a lot of my own time on "lab" work, that's not billable to a client. I regard that as a good use of my time.<p>Working for a larger consulting firm has its merits, but I'm not so sure I'd ever want to work for another one, for the specific reason that my value to my employer, is regarded as whatever hours they can bill to our clients.
I'll clarify that my question is more related to a team of consultants, not necessarily a microISV. Also, what benefits have you seen from this effort? Could be direct financial gains, employee morale boost, anything!