The first steering committee, halfway through the work. The consultants bring an uncomfortable finding, a two-week delay and a change request. The head of operations uses the delay against the project. The engagement manager explains the cause without blaming anyone, and the sponsor asks for a decision, not an excuse.
Let's begin. We have an hour and three items: what the work has found, where the plan is, and two decisions for me. Joanna is taking the minutes. And as I always ask, bad news first, please. Owen, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Before I start, everyone here has seen these numbers, so there shouldn't be any surprises. Javier, Meera and I went through them with you yesterday.
You did. And I'll say it here too: I had questions, and you answered most of them.
Most of them?
The ones about the numbers. Not the ones about what happens next. We'll get to those, I'm sure. And one more thing. My teams know this meeting is today. Whatever we say here will be in the canteen by lunch.
Then let's be careful with our words, and clear about what is decided and what isn't.
Owen showed Javier the numbers before the steering committee, as he promised. Now Javier can't be surprised in front of his boss, and the meeting can be about decisions. In a steering committee, the worst moment is a senior person seeing a key number for the first time.
Then let me start with the finding, in one sentence. The cheapest centre per call isn't the cheapest centre per customer.
Explain that for me as if I had to explain it to my board.
Leeds handles a call for less money than Glasgow. But in Leeds, twenty-two per cent of customers call back about the same problem. In Glasgow, it's about eight. So in Leeds you often pay for the same customer two or three times.
How sure are you of the eight?
It's a sample, so between six and ten. Even at ten, it's less than half of Leeds.
Javier, you've run these centres for six years. Does eight per cent surprise you?
Honestly, yes. I thought Glasgow was slow, and part of it still is. But I didn't know their customers called back so little. Nobody measured it, and that's my responsibility as much as anyone's.
And that's why moving everything to Leeds is on page two, and not on page one.
Exactly. It was our first idea, and we've shown why we dropped it. I'd rather you saw the idea we dropped than wondered whether we'd thought of it.
Owen puts the abandoned hypothesis in the pack on purpose. It shows the client that the obvious option was tested, and it explains why the team changed its mind. A recommendation is more trusted when the client can see what was rejected and why.
My board liked the last sentence you gave me. They'll like this one less. They've been hearing four million for a year.
I understand. We'll have a real number before the final steering committee. Today I can only tell you it will be lower than four.
If it helps, we can come to the board with you. A smaller number is easier to defend when the people who calculated it are in the room.
I may take you up on that. Either way, I'd rather have a smaller number I can defend than a big one I can't. Where did the Glasgow figure come from? Our system doesn't record that.
From Joanna's team. They checked five hundred Glasgow cases by hand. Without that work, we'd be heading towards the wrong answer.
Joanna, thank you. I didn't know that.
It was the team, really. Three people worked late for two weeks. And I asked them to do it properly, because I knew Glasgow worked differently and I wanted it measured, not guessed.
Owen names Joanna's team in front of the sponsor, as he promised Judith. Credit given privately is kind; credit given in front of the person's senior manager changes how they are seen. It costs nothing and builds trust with the client team.
Now, where the plan is. We're two weeks behind. The reason is the Glasgow data: checking those cases by hand took three weeks instead of two. Our proposal said that if the data arrived late, the plan would move with it, so we're asking for a change request: two more weeks.
Two weeks late at the halfway point. With respect, what does that say about the second half?
It's a fair question. It says the second half depends on the same thing the first half did: good data. The difference is that now we have it.
Or it says the project is slower than you promised, and Bristol and Glasgow wait another two weeks to hear about their future. My agents read every delay as bad news.
If I can say something. The sample took longer because we did it properly. If we'd rushed it, the eight per cent would be a guess. The Glasgow team leaders checked every case twice.
Owen describes the cause, not a person: the data took longer. He links it to an assumption both sides agreed at the start. Joanna, whose team could have been blamed, defends the quality of the work herself. When nobody is blamed, people are free to explain.
Owen, when did you know it would be late?
Two weeks ago, when Joanna's team told us the sample would take longer. I should have told you then, not today. That's on me.
Next time, tell me the day you know. I can handle bad news. I don't like old bad news.
Understood. The day I know.
I don't need to know whose fault it is. I need to know three things. What do you need, what does it cost, and what happens if I say no?
We need two weeks. It costs fifty-eight thousand four hundred pounds. If you say no, we finish on the original date, but the transition plan for Bristol is a page instead of a plan.
Philip asks for the need, the cost and the consequence of saying no. Owen answers all three in three sentences, with an exact number. A decision-maker can only decide when the alternative is clear. "What happens if I say no?" deserves an honest answer, not a threat.
Fifty-eight thousand. Is there any part of that you can absorb?
I'll answer that one. No, because the assumption was agreed in the proposal, and the extra time is real work by real people. If we gave it away, you'd be right to ask what our first price was based on. But here's what I can offer. If we finish in less than two weeks, you pay only for the days we use.
That's fair. Javier, any objection?
To the money, no. I want the Bristol plan to be a real plan, not a page.
Then the change request is approved. Two weeks, up to fifty-eight thousand four hundred.
Judith refuses a discount but offers something fair: the client pays only for time actually used. Philip records the decision with "up to", which turns her offer into the official limit. Listen for how decisions are stated in a steering committee: short, exact, and with the number.
Thank you. We'll confirm it in writing today.
Second decision, the telephony option. It's fixed at eighty-five until today. Owen, do I need it now?
My honest answer is no. If the answer is two centres instead of three, the question becomes which phone system to keep, and that's an implementation question. If you buy it today, you add another two weeks for an answer you don't need yet.
And Glasgow's phone system is older than some of my agents. Whatever happens, it won't be the one we keep.
A consultant advising me not to buy something. I'll write that down.
We'd rather sell you the right thing later than the wrong thing today.
Then no telephony for now. So the final steering committee moves by two weeks, not four.
That's right. Fourteen weeks in total, and it's all on one page at the back of your pack.
Then let me ask the question I asked yesterday. Two centres. Which two? If it's Leeds and Glasgow, what happens to Bristol?
We don't know yet, and I won't pretend we do. That's what the next weeks are for: the people, the knowledge in Bristol, and what a fair transition would look like.
You keep saying nothing has been decided. In Bristol, people have mortgages and children at school. Two more weeks of not knowing is not nothing for them.
I know, and I'll keep saying it until something has. When it is, you'll hear it from me first, before it's on a slide. And the plan for Bristol will have dates and names, not just words.
Javier tests Owen by repeating his words back to him. Owen doesn't get defensive; he repeats the promise and adds when it will change. Under pressure, consistency matters more than new arguments.
Then what do I tell my agents on Monday?
That the project needs two more weeks, and nothing has been decided. Joanna, can you and Javier write a short note together, so they hear it from us and not from a rumour?
Yes. We'll send it to you first, and then to the team leaders before the agents, so nobody hears it second-hand.
Good. Let me close. The finding is noted. The change request is approved, up to fifty-eight thousand four hundred. Telephony is not taken now. And the next steering committee is the final one, two weeks later than planned. Joanna, can you send the minutes by Monday?
By Monday morning.
Thank you, everyone, and thank you for keeping it to the hour. That was the kind of steering committee I like: bad news early, and decisions at the end. And Owen, thank you for showing Javier the numbers first. I noticed.
Thank you, Philip. We'll send the revised plan with the minutes on Monday.