#178 - Tim Beattie: The Consulting Model Incentivizes Going Slower

Tim Beattie is the Co-founder and CEO of Stellafai, an outcomes-focused consulting platform founded in August 2022 to replace time-billed engagements with an enablement model that leaves client teams permanently more capable. Rising to prominence in the 2010s as a consulting culture leader, he became widely regarded as one of the clearest practitioners working on the gap between what professional services firms promise and what their incentive structures actually deliver. At Stellafai, which reached its first paid customer by October 2022, reached general availability in January 2023, and has reported 10x growth since launch, he leads the effort to make organizational change a measurable, auditable outcome rather than a billable activity.

Previously, as DevOps Culture Enablement lead at Red Hat across Europe and the Middle East, he helped enterprises adopt agile and DevOps as genuine operating philosophies rather than compliance exercises. He became known for identifying and naming what he called “dishonest agile” — the practice of assembling project teams that disbanded immediately after delivery, contradicting the continuity and learning loops that agile methods require. His regional scope encompassed enterprises across two continents during a period of significant enterprise digital transformation.

His career highlights include 25 years across major consulting firms, including IBM and several boutique professional services organizations, where he observed firsthand how time-and-materials billing structurally rewards complexity and delay over outcomes — a dynamic he documented in DevOps Culture and Practice with OpenShift, a practitioner guide integrating lean, agile, and design thinking with hands-on technical enablement. That book, and the framework behind Stellafai, reflect a consistent career mission: making consulting less wasteful, more accountable, and more genuinely enabling.

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So I built the thing I wanted to read. Every week I have two conversations with people who build in technology and product. Then I write the essay I wish I could find — one that puts you inside the conversation, through my eyes. What caught me off guard. What I kept thinking about after we hung up. Where the principle actually lives once you strip away the jargon.

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