I took my Suburban in to the dealer for some brake work last week. I usually drop the truck off in the evening and then have the shop call with an oral estimate and explanation. This led to a rational conversation with my mechanic.

15 months ago I replaced the rotors and pads after the brakes began shuddering pretty badly after what seemed like a short time, maybe 18 months. A Suburban is a heavy vehicle, and it carries my wife and daughters, so I like to make sure the brakes work properly. The last thing I want to do is skimp on my brakes. At the time I was told that the rotors were after-market and that is why they warped pretty quickly. Oh, and there wasn’t enough material to turn them, either, so I needed new rotors. I, in fact, did use after-market rotors, so the diagnosis seemed correct, and I let them replace the rotors. Everything was good to go.

Fast forward to last week. The brakes are again shuddering madly on the Suburban along with a number of other issues. I drop the car off. They call me the next day. We talk. I’m told the rotors are warped pretty badly. I’m thinking, “after 15 months? That’s less than where I took it last time. Why should I spend money with the dealer if performance is no better?” So we talk this through. Service tells me that the records show the pads were replaced last time, and that’s it. “Hmmmm,” I say. “I was told last time that the rotors were replaced,” and then I go into my story about after-market rotors, blah, blah. Service digs a bit and sees that the rotors were replaced, but that they were replaced with an inferior, and less expensive, of two choices. “OOOHHhhhhhhh,” I say, thinking to myself that I was not given this choice 15 months ago. I assumed service would replace the rotors with better performing ones after chiding me for choosing after-market the first time.

I could have laid into this guy and the service department in general.  I didn’t.  I was somewhat disappointed, though.  Still, in the end I got what I paid for, so it’s not like service pulled the wool over my eyes.  I wasn’t charged for high-end rotors.  It just meant that I had to bring the car in a bit earlier than I would have liked.  At this point, as the customer, I finally had all the information I needed to make better decisions.  Before I spent the extra $150, I did need to escalate.  I told service I would call them back after conferring with my account^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwife.  She handles the money and I didn’t want to make the final call without approval   My conversation with her went as anticipated, “They cost more?  But they’ll last longer?  Sure, let’s do it.”  I called service back and said let’s do it.

This interaction with the service department doesn’t seem that much different than interactions that happen daily during IT project life-cycles.  It’s all about getting all the information, even when it can be disappointing, making rational decisions when the guys under the hood find unanticipated issues, and then getting buy-in on the solution every step of the way while communication takes place with all parties to keep everyone on the same page.

So project managers, make sure you’re communicating to your project sponsors all the information all the time so that the sponsors can make decisions.  And project sponsors, hold your teams responsible for what they’ve committed to, and when they bring you new information be ready to bend a little to make sure you get what you want.

- Andy