American Dreaming - 1990's / Part XI

After my arrival and the requisite 45 minute ($45 worth) cab ride from Washington National airport to our corporate offices, I immediately went up to the suite of offices that the working group had called home for the last year. Upon getting a cup of coffee from the pantry I sought out our consultant project manager. I found him in one of the cubicles over by the window looking forlorn and seemingly in need of a friend.

“What’s up Don…?”

“Bad news I’m afraid.” (I had already surmised that he was troubled so this was not a surprise)

“Oh? How so…?”

“Looks like its you and me, Jim.”

“What happened with Ozzie and Linda…flight delays?”

“No… they won’t be coming. They submitted their resignation yesterday. Gone, Kaput… I don’t know who would be taking their place but, I’m sure it won’t be before our 11:00 with the board.”

“Uh huh, I see. That’s a bit of a shocker”

“Yeah. A lot of the assumptions they were insistent on including in the proposed architecture were the most contentious portions of this document. I don’t know if we should do anything with that section or whether it even matters at this point.”

I knew what portions he was speaking of. We had many hours of debate on certain elements of what we were calling our “to be” environments. I paused but then said “I don’t know as if we really have any time to put in any major modifications to the presentation. I guess we can keep that nugget in reserve and pull it out if/when those questions come up.”

After all the forceful proclamations that came from those two IT professionals and how much change (and grief) I was subject to from that source, I was left with a puzzled set of mixed feelings. I really never saw that coming. In the last conversations I had with the two of them they were relishing the opportunity to present this proposal for projects and changes to our IT organizations to the board.

I wasn’t sure if I beat the Ferengi or not… Did I win or lose here because I was the only one that ultimately was going to face the board with a recommendation that would consist of work products that would take several years to build along with five million dollars of cost.

The actual meeting was a bit of a blur. I wound up not having a very prominent role in the meeting after all. The board had already received and reviewed copies of the report and the recommendations within it. They had already made up their minds as to what they were going to do before we walked. It was more of an opportunity for them to relay to us the direction they were going to announce to the company then an opportunity for us to present anything.

After a year’s worth of work and probably several million in consultant and travel fees, they made up their minds that they weren’t going to do anything. They were going to keep all the components of both IT organizations going for the short term until some of the contract renewals for some of their key books of business were complete. They would eventually seek to bring new books of business into the fold using a set components of IT (some from one company and some from the other) and that would consist of their “go-forward” strategy. Eventually all books of business would be folded into that model.

None of the recommendations for additional functionality or technology upgrades would be considered at this time. Thank you for your time on this project, have a nice day.

Sheesh…

---Jim