On a recent engagement there was significant personnel change within the client's leadership. The original project purchasing sponsor had been replaced with someone outside their organization, after the contracts had been signed, but very early in the throws of the engagement. The implications of this change were subtle (if even noticeable) at first. However, as the engagement wore on, the issues began to escalate.
My team was able to navigate for a time, but it became evident that the new sponsor had a very different idea of how our engagement was arranged. While the previous sponsor was focused on a true project-based solution (where we had well defined goals, milestones and technical solution), the new sponsor pushed for a staff augmentation model, where we were no longer charging toward the milestones originally defined in our contract.
While we are nothing if not flexible, this posed a problem in getting closure of the project.
How do we know when we are done if there are no milestones?
What was needed was a meeting where I was to sit down with our sponsor (and his boss who was left over from the prior regime) and re-define what we were there to do. This meeting had all the earmarks of becoming a very uncomfortable discussion - budgets, goals, schedules and task ownership were all coming to the table with the perception that all were missed.
Now, I have had these types of meeting before, but this time was more intense, I was sitting across from a Director and a Vice President. Without going into details, the meeting went very well and resulted in clear actions to get closure and ending the project strongly.
During my preparation for the meeting, there were several concepts that I kept in the forefront of my mind:
- be prepared with the facts
- anticipate the responses
- remove emotion and accusatory language
- do not drudge up the past more than absolutely necessary
- have a plan for fixing the problem
The most important idea here is to stay with the facts and not let emotions get the better of you (or your client).
