Star Story

Situation: I had proposed the idea of having an appointment system for our truck and bus service division. I was leading this project and implementing a third party product. 20 days into the project I realized that the third party product was developed for SAP systems and integrating that with Oracle would only lead to complexity in the future. The cost would also be 30% more than previously estimated.

Task: When my manager came to know about it, he wanted to annul the project and leave it for the next year. But I knew the necessity of appointment system for the service division. They could plan their human resources well and maintain a optimal inventory.

Action: I suggested that we develop our own Appointment-System, as we had the form-developers in our team and knew the functionality of the product. But manager was not willing. To persuade him I first started to think of what is his perspective. I realized that two things he would be worried of. One on how to convey to the service division manager about the wrong product and two how to manage the financials for the project. I told my manager that I would talk to service manager and will take the responsibility of his approval. Also I presented him the complete project plan that I had developed and showed him that the cost would almost remain the same. Lastly I also motivated my team and arranged a meeting where my team conveyed the confidence that they they want to do this project. Once my manager approved I used the same technique to persuade the service manager, only difference was I had to ask him for more time, to compensate for that I promised him of 2 more features that were not available in the 3rd party product.

Result: the system was developed in 50 days and went live. The feature bolstered customer satisfaction and gave us a competitive advantage that within 6 months, the revenue rose by 20%.

Lesson: It taught me that doing the homework of target audience and presenting information they are...