You may have been following a story with one of our clients which I titled The Impossible (you can read the original post here and the follow-up here). So what have I learned from this? What did we do wrong or could we have done better? Having had time to reflect here’s some of the things I’ve come up with. But first, a bit more background…
How did it all happen?
We met over the internet.
They had a need. We wanted to fill that need.
It was desire (or lust) at first contact.
We sent in our man on a blind date, he secured the work and started immediately.
Who took the brief?
Our surveyor did. The client needed someone fast and we sent him straight in; something we wouldn’t ordinarily do.
Who then managed the brief?
Our surveyor did. Having been there at the original briefing, we left him to manage the job. It didn’t sound that bad an assignment; it was routine work to us…
Who did he call when things started to go off course?
Well the guy he took the brief from of course. The trouble with this was that he wasn’t the day to day contact on the project and was divorced from every day issues that had cropped up.
What could we have done differently?
Gone to see the client after the brief had been given to make sure that it had been correctly translated and that a clear plan had been agreed (as we would usually do)
The moral of the story?
Lack of time is no excuse for compromising on attention to detail. Even though the need was urgent we should have found time.