Following the Stakeholder’s Brief
We have all seen it, been in meetings, read the emails and realize things are not quite right. The stakeholder requested “A” and got “B” . The project life cycle has its ups and downs and you want your team to deliver the perfect solution to the client. But as more and more people get involved, the brief changes, but the client didn’t change it!
The old adage of “the customer is always correct” isn’t always true. However, they pay the invoice, they have the vision, and buy the produce. They want what they ask for and we should give it to them.
As you look at these pictures, it’s just to make you smile. It’s simply thought-provoking – to make you think of the last time your project failed, the last situation that your company got it wrong – over promised and under delivered, missed the milestone deadline due to over engineering something or quite simply didn’t listen to the client or stakeholder.
Smile the last time you went to find the QA documentation and it wasn’t there. Blame the subbie. Did they load it onto the system? Did it ever get completed? Where is the Document Controller? Well, they saw the writing on the wall and disappeared before the end of the project. Dealing with the final account with your Site Quantity Surveyor that you previously argued with about costing, now wants information that you can’t recall, can’t find and ultimately costs the project more than it needs to.
Maybe as you sit in the design department, as the Electrical Design Engineer, was it your team that over engineered something – sitting there looking at the scope of work that the customer wanted and looking at what your team is designing. Does it look a bit different?
Well, life is life and there will always be people that complicate things and there will always be people that take the wrong decision for an easy life for themselves but it impacts the team or the project. Next time you get a new job and join a new company or move to a new project, try and listen to the stakeholder, ultimately they pay for everything.