Top mgt buy-in

Back from a three week long, and a much needed, vacation. Just before I left for vacation we had an interesting meeting with the CEO of the supplier for the 3rd party package-project. In March 2006 we increased the budget for the project and also informed the supplier that they were entiteled to use up to 7 resources instead of 2,5 before. This has unfortunately not happened due to the fact that we only spoke to the CTO and not the CEO. Ok, the CTO is a partner of the company and it should have been enough but it wasn’t…

The supplier had only utiliesed ~45% of the authorized resources during 10 weeks and this has proven to blow the timeplan for the project. The CEO was not aware about that the supplier had the right to use up to 7 resources and in that sence missed out on some good business for the company. I couldn’t belive when I heared this…

So, what are the lessons learned from this small ”misshapp”?

• Always secure that you have top management ”buy-in”
• Demand specified time-reports from the supplier

I have a feeling that I will have an interesting autumn…

/ThePM