
Ask HN: Help explaining technical project to execs - throwbruh
I was hired to complete a project by the CEO of a services company.<p>The project was to implement CRM and Reporting for the CEO and Headquarters staff gain visibility into the day to day operations of their sales staff.<p>They wanted metrics including some activities, revenue and other stats.<p>They have 10+ different locations.<p>The plan I put forth was CRM Instance for each site with roll up reporting via a BI&#x2F;Reporting Solution.<p>The CEO approved the plan, and I began working on it, but the rest of the executive team (COO, CFO, etc.) keep blocking the plan by refusing to pay for individual project pieces or engaging in other projects that are redundant to plans that are already included in my project.<p>I have presented in front of the group 4 times in the last nine months (a month after hiring, once in October, before the company strategic planning meeting and again during the strategic planning meeting).  After each meeting, the CEO requested the documents from me so he could share and discuss with the executive committee.<p>The CEO asked again to present the plan to the committee to address “concerns from fully understanding the total strategy”, there are a lot of “moving parts” and need another briefing to better “understand each piece and expense better”.  When I asked him if he shared the documents with the executive committee, he asked me to resend it to them.<p>Now, I believe the project is now setup to fail. Is there any salvaging this? What is the best way to present the plan to the various members with little technical experience?
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bharatkasapoot
You are approaching this as a presentation and not achieving success. Try
treating this as a business and each steering committee member as a VC. This
means treating each member of the committee as an individual stake
holder....your job is to convince EACH of them on what's in it for them....

The CEO is subtly trying to tell you that....

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throwbruh
I addressed each of their concerns in my previous 'pitches' to the committee.
CFO gets better financial reporting to accurately make forecasts and decrease
errors, COO gets better data on day to day operations, etc. Things go well for
a week or two after the pitches but it seems to fade and they wonder what
these "random project costs" are all about.

I think the disconnect is that I feel that since this project is what the CEO
wants and has approved it doesn't need further "proving". I see how that might
be naive of me.

