Saying No

When I worked with a dynamic company in Texas, the interview process was arduous. After several phone interviews and a day of technical interviews, they decided to use me as one of only a couple contract contract project managers they had. The Vice President of consulting was very frank when we finally closed the deal. He wanted to talk about two things: one, what could they do better in the interview process? and two, he wanted me to know that the company would say no when they were not certain the software could be delivered on time.

Today I made the same choice. I had a customer who had a problem with getting what they wanted. I felt badly for them -- I felt that somehow the company I had been working with had left them in a bad way. So I suggested that I could fix their entire software problems for a fixed price and time. I know what most of you are thinking -- warning Will Robinson! Danger! Danger! And I agree. Fixed price jobs are notoriously difficult to bid, maintain, and deliver. You have to have the heart of a marine drill instructor. Fortunately, I was a marine, so that made things easier. I also had been modeling their company for several months, understood their software at a low-level, and knew exactly where they wanted to go.

I gave a price. Hey! We want this, and we're ready to sign tomorrow! They said. Sounds okay, I said.

Tomorrow came. Hey! We love this mostly, and we'll be ready to sign in a few days.

A few days passed. Hey! We have some problems, but mostly we're all for this! How long is the quote good for?

At this point, besides realizing that something was wrong, I told them two weeks. After a gut check, I realized that I could not maintain all of my resources ready-to-go, could not maintain a to-do list ready to execute, could not guarantee vacation time even. Two weeks it was. After that, the quote was bad.

Today was the last working day of the two weeks. My customer said, in order, that they had not had time to review the document, did not think we had an agreement in principle, was not confident that they were making the right decision, and was not ready to commit to make their change to a new system all at once.

My customer pressured, asked, pushed, and cajoled. Couldn't I wait just another few days? We didn't have an agreement, but couldn't I go ahead and position long-term resources and make long-term commitments so they could get all fixed up in three months?

I had to say no.

I did not enjoy this. In fact, I hated it. But I barely had confidence that I could make things happen with a two week decision window. I was not at all confident that I could make it happen within a month later than the original date if we pushed it forward a week.

I could have taken some money. I guess the worst projects I have ever worked for were projects where people just decided to take some money. But I said no.

No, sometimes, is the hardest thing to say.