ICFI is like several mini companies, each with a handful of experts, and its own culture.
Pros
ICFI is full of very smart people -- most at the top in their respective fields.
Cons
Although many lines of business intersect, group collaboration is rare and difficult. Furthermore, employees have little work/life balance; all employees (from entry-level to senior-level) take work home every night. Employees routinely eat dinner, and get back online, emailing and working from 7:30/8:00 pm until midnight or later. Communications continue regularly throughout the evening. Employees take laptops home nightly -- not just for proposals or urgent deliverables, but for routine work. Employees work no matter what is happening in their lives -- when their parent dies, their spouse is in labor, their home burns down, they are sitting on the beach on vacation, and so on. I have led proposals and tried to reassign writing assignments for co-workers who are having a family emergency, and they would not let me. If there is any unifying culture at ICFI, it's the lack of work/life balance.
