Randal finds Tim in his new cube just before his meeting
with Micky. “So Tim, what is the plan?”
“Same as with Grant.”
“Seems a bit simple, Tim.”
“True. With Grant, I highlighted the meet original commitments issues and the engineering concerns since that is his area of expertise. With Micky, it will be better to highlight the ‘grow the business’ aspects such as customer relationships and meeting revenues issues.”
“That part makes sense. Be sure to highlight their areas of ownership and interest.”
“Possibly this time I’ll start with the cloud versus the issues as well.”
“Eh? You are being TOC cryptic again, Tim.”
“Cater to the audience. With Grant he lives a lot of the engineering issues, so it made sense to start the discussion there. Micky is the CEO and sees and lives the company’s struggles, so starting with the cloud of the company’s conflict should work well for him.”
“Fair enough. Any other prep; we went through a lot of details for Grant?”
“Nope, we did all of the ground work and analysis already. I think we’re good to go.”
“Do you need me to be your wingman on this one?”
“I have been going a bit back and forth on that one, Randal. You certainly know the organization more so that would help. At the same time you also noted that Micky will be more open one on one. I need him to feel comfortable and I need to know where he stands. So probably best for me to go solo this time around.”
“Okay, I have a few meetings this afternoon. Why don’t we catch up tomorrow morning and we can review how things went and continue preparations for the Exec meeting.”
“Sure.”
Tim Meets with Micky
The next day, Tim walks up to Micky’s office. As he enters he sees Micky
finishing up a call just before he waves Tim to come in. Micky is over 6 foot, well built, and dressed impeccably.
“Hi Tim, it is nice to meet with you,” Micky states, sizing Tim up.
“Hi Micky, it is good to meet with you as well.”
“So I have been having regular meetings with Randal and he has indicated that you have been working with engineering to try and improve our process.”
“That is correct; I have been looking through the different issues and see what we can do.”
“And what have you seen?” Micky pausing to see what Tim comes up with.
Step 1: Show the Cloud
“I see that everyone wants the company to be successful. On one side we are obligated to meet existing contract commitments [crt 5].”
“True,” agrees Micky.
“On the other side the competition is catching up and we need to grow revenues. This causes us to feel the need and pressure to focus on new requests and grow the business [crt 8].”
“Also very true.”
“We have enough resources to meet existing commitments [crt 4], but not enough to meet existing commitments and grow the company at the same time. So we oscillate back and forth trying to meet these two needs.”
Micky takes a short breath and, giving Tim some more time to see where he is going with this, he responds, “That certainly sums up a few of our challenges, Tim. So what do you suggest we do?”
Step 2: Blame the System and Highlight Key Issues from CRT
“The current product development system is not working for us. We run into schedule delays, cut quality to meet deadlines, and miss customer deadlines. This is all impacting the company’s revenues and our ability to move forward to the extent
that contract revenues are down 30%.”
“Yes, revenues are down,” Micky states, a little frustrated and waiting for Tim to finish his pitch.
Step 3: Introduce the Key Injection and Vision
Tim continues, “We need a new system. A system that can better accommodate our needs, support the original commitments, allow growth, has better change control, and allow us to deliver on-time. The Critical Chain project management system can get us there.”
“This is the project management system that Grant and Gary have been working on for Phoenix?”
“Yes. We developed a stronger schedule, designed it to get revenues faster, and built it to better absorb reasonable delays and changes.”
“And what about the other projects we have going on?” asks Micky.
“We can take the process and lessons from Phoenix and carry them over to the other projects.”
“How long until we get results? What types of results can I expect, Tim?”
“As the projects execute, we can see that they are holding to their overall deadlines. We can also see them accommodate some of the customer and Exec changes better, but we have to use good change control to be very selective of the changes we choose. As the project’s finish up, we should see them reaching their revenues sooner and the customers more engaged and happier.”
“Tim, Phoenix is months out. The other projects are even farther out.” Micky’s patience is running out and his voice raising slightly. “We need something to go to the customers now. I can’t go back to them with engineering promises of things getting better in half a year. We have done that already and our deliveries and quality got worse not better. We’ve lost a few key accounts and the others are not doing much better. I need something better to turn things around.”
Tim stirs uncomfortably. “We have made the schedules much better and we have made the process significantly better for Phoenix. It is running better. It will help out the company. But it will take time for products to get developed. That part I can’t control.”
Micky sighs and sits back in his chair putting his hands down on his desk. “I can’t just tell our customers to buy more from us based on the fact that we have just tweaked our process and we expect everything will be better in a few months. We have already been down that road. I am also concerned about getting everyone’s hopes falsely stirred up if your new process can’t fix our immediate problems.”
Tim is a bit shocked, but he tries to recover. “Critical Chain can get us there, but we need to give it time. I can share results other organizations have gotten, but it takes time.”
“That is the concern, Tim. We have run out of time. Maybe Critical Chain could get us there. Gary and Grant seem to think it shows promise. But engineering has promised changes time and time again. They make incremental improvements, yet we keep falling behind our deliveries and our competition is catching up. We need a game-changer Tim and I need it today. If engineering can’t provide it then I will,” Micky states a bit more defiant and resolved.
Tim and Micky sit there quietly for a moment. Micky is comfortable and defiantly holding the silence. Then Tim wants to end on some positive action going forward, “I’ll keep working with Gary on the schedule and we can bring the results to the Exec meeting. We can highlight how we have improved and how we are staying on track.”
Micky pauses, “Sure Tim. That sounds reasonable.” Looking at his watch, he says, “Tim, I have a call coming up.”
“Sure. Thank you for your time,” and with that, Tim left Micky’s office starting to think about how things went and what next steps would make sense.”
Next Steps
The next morning things seem a bit somber. Randal had called and wanted to meet over at the company coffee shop right away. Tim was still thinking about how things had gone during his talk with Micky.
As Tim walks over to the coffee shop, surprisingly, Randal is already there at a table.
“Let’s go for a walk, Tim.”
“Sure.” They quietly walk down the hall and out the building. Randal is looking very somber and turns to Tim.
“I found out Micky’s next step this morning.”
“Oh?” replies Tim.
“Micky cut your consulting contract effective immediately. He wants you to clean out your desk and be gone. Something about us being tight on money and budget cutting, but all of us know it is just a ruse. You must of really pushed his buttons somehow.”
Tim stops walking for a second and takes everything in. “Actually, it didn’t feel that way. As soon as I said we needed to improve the product development process and it would take time, he was done.”
“Hmm, before you started consulting, engineering has been in the hot seat for months and has made a lot of promises. Micky took those promises to the customers. But then the promises didn’t work out and Micky had to back pedal. Possibly this was the last straw.”
“Possibly. I guess. Either way he was not open to the direction I was going unless I could guarantee results instantly. He seemed to have already made up his mind before we even started talking. At this point in time, I think I could have said anything and it would not have
mattered.”
“We can figure something out, Tim. Maybe you just caught Micky on an off day. Both Gary and I want to appeal his decision to end your contract. Grant was a bit surprised by Micky’s actions as well. He said he would look into it, but that no matter what we did, it was not going to get resolved before the Exec meeting.”
Tim changing the subject, “So what are you and Gary going to do about the Exec meeting?”
“We will continue to gather the results. So far they are looking promising. As expected, we’ve hit a number of issues, consumed some of the project buffer, and we’re still on track to hit our deliverables. The team feels more confident that the schedule is realistic and they actually have a chance to succeed. I have been working with Gary to talk with the customers to better enable a clean feature check-out. The customers appreciate the attention and Gary feels it will help us get payments a month early if the schedules continue to hold up.”
“That sounds very good, Randal.”
“It was all from your help and support, Tim. I have also taken items from our discussion with Grant and I’ll see if I can work them into the presentation as well. Although with the Exec review it is more of a status update then a buy-in discussion. If I need help, is it okay to call you Tim?”
“Sure, of course.”
“Seems like you have a little bit of a break until we can get something sorted out,” Randal notes.
“I guess I need to get back to updating and sending out my resume again,” Tim says, trailing off.
“Gary and I will work with Grant. We will see if we can figure something out. You have put a lot of time and heart to help out our company. It really has made a difference.”