Fit for purpose

There are days I think I’m not cut out for this job, and days I know I’m not.  Yesterday was one of the latter.

Meeting with major client to discuss modifications to software promised some time back for which we now have an agreed, do it by then or its all over, delivery date.  I’m told by our dev guys we’ll crack this easily (mind you they said that about the first date too).  Met with channel guys in cafe across the road beforehand.

Cafe is next to pile of wreaths commemorating victims of recent terrorist bombing which is by way of reminder that things could be worse no matter how badly this meeting goes.  Am reminded of this later when I catch myself wishing for a bombing or similar to set off alarms and terminate meeting.

Me, two representatives of channel and three client people, so we stand a chance of tying any votes if it comes to that.  I have three carefully prepared documents to table and all three stay in my bag throughout, as it quickly becomes apparent that Senthil, the client’s ops manager, will only be happy with documents he’s prepared or at least severely edited.  We spend the first hour arguing over whether our stating the technological background to what we’re endeavouring to produce is our sneaky way of avoiding meeting his requirements.  Initially I see his point, then I progressively come to realise that every time one of us agrees with him he moves his viewpoint further out to ensure argument.

Senthil is short, fat, bald and heavily bearded.  His smart suit, fat watch and bling cufflinks contrast with my usual scruffiness, but luckily the channel guys are reasonably turned out.  Whether his need for conflict is the classic short-guy syndrome is debatable, but he has a reputation for enjoying beating up suppliers which I’d heard but not entirely given credence to.  He is uniquely nasty in my experience, though he mostly does it with a smile on his face.  A smug, self-satisfied, you’re not going to enjoy this but you have to put up with it cos I’m the buyer smile.

Having finally worn us down on the definitions of what we were going to deliver (and changed pretty much nothing, but spent signficant time and energy doing so), we moved on to dates for delivery.  The date for delivery of software, as stated, was fixed a while back having moved once, and we knew we’d no chance of moving it again.  But having got the software in you have to implement it and let it do its thing.  Its thing last time took two weeks to do, so the channel guy was saying allowing two weeks again this time (even though we’d hope this time to be a lot faster) was prudent. 

Senthil rounded on this and started a major rant on slippage, not respecting committed dates, trying it on etc.  The channel guy patiently explained again this was not any change, simply adding on the necessary implementation time to the date we’ve committed to deliver the tools to do the job.  They might as well have been speaking different languages.

After a couple more to-ings and fro-ings the channel guy lost it.

‘If there’s not basic trust around this table I think we might as well call the whole thing off!’

I misread this slightly and started packing my bag.  Conscious of eyes on me, I noticed that everyone else had read this correctly as some steam being released which then led to a general rapprochement whereby we could all agree next steps.

Senthil had several more digs but fortunately his boss, Trevor, also present, is a reasonable human being who intervened as required (though a little slower than I’d have liked) to get basic agreements in place.  We left just under two hours after we’d arrived, having agreed to the things we’d already agreed to before we’d come in.

Which is as close to an achievement as I can register for this week.