I Just Got Tired of Saying No
Even Though You’d Have to Be Crazy Not to See It Our Way
See, we have (had?) things figured out pretty well. We have a core delivery process we’ve been working on since 1999. Our improvement process is pretty simple really.
We use every project, every milestone achieved, and every task performed as a learning opportunity. What worked well and what didn’t? Does it represent a pattern? Does it merit a change in approach or process? If yes, make change. If no, keep in mind for the future. Pretty basic huh? What’s amazing is the impact this makes when applied every single day for many years. Kaizen for sure. But certainly nothing fancy.
Problem is, Some Clients Have Their Own Processes and Objectives
Damn, the best laid plans…Our focus has always been on achieving maximum predictability and minimum risk when it comes to:
Meeting well defined requirements
Beating timelines
Beating budgets
We’re really good at that. But it turns out that…
Every Client Has Unique Objectives and Constraints
Who would have figured? Huh? Yep, it’s true. For some, absolute speed is paramount. For others, lowest possible cost is the goal. Some even have a philosophical disagreement with spending time on project management, application design, or consulting. And you know what? Every client is right. It just depends on your objectives, constraints and tolerance of risk. Problem was…
We Had to Say No Because…
Because, well, because we have a obsessive fear of “failure”. It got to the point that we viewed exceeding budget or timeline by as little as 2% as failure. Actually, we still do. Never mind that IT related projects are notorious for cost overages of percentages measured by 100’s and timeline misses measured in years.
And there’s no way in hell we were going to work on any project that we couldn’t be 98.1% certain of success. Certain of success because we would follow our methodology.
Problem was, some clients define success differently than we do. Wow. You might have a perspective different from ours. Who’d have thunk it? So, it became obvious we needed to rethink the definition of success, and become more flexible.
