The Project That Fell on Its Face
My team and I completed a year-long project to implement a new technology solution for our customers. It was hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work.
We were ending a long slog, and finally, we could see the end. Things weren’t perfect, but the cutting edge technology was working the way we thought it should.
But that all changed with one meeting. The project sponsor said,
"I know that is technically what I asked for, but it is not what I want."
OUCH!
We missed the mark, and it sucked. Blame was tossed around, and it became an ugly political mess. How could we have been so far off?
I’m reading through Beth Comstock’s book, Imagine It Forward, and something that Jack Welch taught her is critical for technologists to understand.
If you don’t know of Jack Welch, he was the celebrity CEO of General Electric in the ’80s and ’90s. During his tenure, GE had one of the biggest business turnarounds in modern American history.
Beth was hired directly by Jack because she was driven, capable, and effective at managing public relations. Here’s how she described her own work ethic:
"Moving fast and being organized were my strong suits…The more there was to do, the more alive I felt. I loved to be productive, efficient, every to-do-list item checked. Urgency was my favorite soundtrack. I loved the energy and the thrill…"
Does this sound familiar to you? When I am in the zone, I love checking items off my to-do list. Especially early in my career, I had a lot of success getting things off my plate as fast and as efficiently as possible. However, I didn’t realize then that my myopic focus on my task list limited my effectiveness.
It’s odd, isn’t it? How can getting more done limit your effectiveness? Let’s go back to the story about Beth at GE:
"…imagine my surprise when, one afternoon, I was talking on the phone to Jack when the line went dead. I called his assistant, Rosanne, to say we had been disconnected."
She said, "No, you weren’t. Jack hung up on you."
"WHAT?"
"He says he wants you to know what it’s like to be in a meeting with you," Rosanne told me. "You’re too abrupt."
That must have stung. That is quite a dramatic way to teach someone that lesson. I’m not commenting on his tactics- whether that is a healthy way to deal with that or not is debatable- but rather to focus on the drive versus the connection with others.
When she talked with Jack in person, he told her
"Take time to get to know people. Understand where they are coming from, what is important to them. Make sure they are with you."
As technology experts, we often jump right to the problem or issue and prepare a pragmatic solution right away so we can check it off our lists of things to do. Immediately seeking a solution is a great trait - and it helps us get a lot accomplished in short amounts of time.
But too often, we gloss over the human factors and in our drive to accomplish, we miss important factors that could help us be even more effective. I was guilty of running through all of the technical tasks and driving the project to completion and overlooking how people were going to use the technology and if it would make their lives better or not. We missed the mark because we ignored the human factors.
So take the time to connect with people - especially with your customers - throughout every phase of a project. It will help you prevent situations where you work hard to deliver your customers a solution only to find that that solution is not what they need.
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I like to go through the design process, get the requirements, confirm the requirements, build to the requirements. Then I can deliver on the requirements. It’s all too often that I’ve delivered based on the requirements, only to be told “it doesn’t do this.....”. Well no, it doesn’t, it wasn’t it the requirements. I had a student present a program flow diagram. He did a great job on designing all the inputs & outputs, but nothing in the middle. Someone just grabbed the diagram and in the box in the middle they added “minor miracle happens here”. Sometimes it’s our job to make that miracle happen.
ITSM Business Process Consultant with extensive ServiceNow experience
6 年The conditions are ripe by the time the project team gets on site. All the things the sales guy promised , and the contracts people gave in to, and the kick off team glossed over. The deck is stacked against you if you’re not listening.
Consulting services only
6 年This is a startling admission to post about yourself. I love the candor. In a previous life, I installed closet organizers. It was not uncommon to complete a job and have someone be unpleasantly surprised (rather than unhappy. The work was good. It just wasn't want they expected.) There were several lessons to be learned from this. 1. I know closet organizers don't come close in complexity to email systems. The comment...I know this is technically what I what I asked for but not what I wanted is a heck of a statement. My follow up question would have been ..."at what point did you realize this was not what you wanted? That would have huge implications on how the response should be handled. Why would someone let you complete the work if they knew some where before the end that this wasn't what the wanted? Or put another way... Was this person competent to be making the ask? Contracts terms, Deliverable, etc are all based on specifications and agreed upon expectations way up front. When I had to change a design half way thru a job, it frequently meant going back to the store to get hardware I didn't have. In IT, it can be many hours of work that was useless or worse...going the wrong direction. If this sounds like I am blaming the customer, its because I am. 2. Sometimes people don't know what they want. we have to tell them because they don't understand the technology. We can help them try to understand the technology. Or they can get experts or advise from their staff. Multifamily though, we can build things that resemble what the request. But sometimes what they are asking for is foolish or nonsensical. If this sounds like I am blaming the customer, its because I am. 3. There are times though when we just hear what the last order was. We diagnose the previous problem. We project what we do on someone else situation. This is real easy to do. But when some one says this is what I asked for but not what I want, this doesn't sound like it falls into this category. Without knowing more of the specifics, it hard to say exactly what this issue was. Maybe I will hear it some day. But there is a reason contracts are written. Because at the last minute, someone will tell you they want it changed. I can't tell you how many jobs I did where i had to sell all the way thru the job and continue selling even after the job was completed. I would have people come to me with a design...a flawed design and I would explain why it was flawed. This would help them pick a good design. But if I didn't keep reminding them (selling them,) they would change their minds. and everyone one of those people who would change their mind would have me change it to the correct design days later...usually free of charge on my part. After this happened a few times, you start becoming rigid in your negotiations. Lets face it, people can be unreasonable and downright whacky. I will read Yelp reviews and go to places that people complain about because their complaints are unreasonable. Its great to make everyone happy. But I learned a pretty important lesson about this as well. If I got done with a job and said so is this the way you wanted it? 8-10 people were happy and I would get the check and be on my way. But 2 and 10 took this as a Pepsi challenge. You would fix the issue and ask them again if they were happy. Again, they would find something else. (Why didn't they find this the first time I asked?) These people would find something every time you asked no matter how many times. Eventually they trained me not to ask a second time. I think its very possible that no matter what you would have done for this person/company, they may have still been unhappy. They may not have even been able to tell you why. The price is fine, it does what I want, its a huge improvement....I'm just unhappy. If it sounds like I am saying this person/company wouldn't have been happy no matter what you do? I don't know. But you better know and figure it out quick. Because dealing with the public is like this. There are a bunch of crazies out there and will never be happy. We've worked for them. You went into business for yourself and I'm proud of you. I'm not sure I could do it again. Stories like yours remind me as to why. Excellent article though. Your story provoked such strong memories, ideas and opinions, I had to respond big. The length of my response should be seen as a measure of the quality of the great article you wrote. Hang it thereand keep up the great work. Mike