Exercise 09 — Present and Defend
This exercise uses your own proposal from exercise 08. If you haven't done it, do it first — there is nothing to present without it.
Context
You have thirty minutes with the cooperative's board. In the room:
president a farmer, 61, in the role for 8 years
decides, and decides by board consensus
finance director accountable for the budget; skeptical about
technology since an ERP that cost triple
the forecast in 2019
operations
director accountable for the harvest; the one thing that
cannot happen is buying stopping in April
IT manager your peer; agrees with you and has little
political capital
And, outside the room but with a voice: the two people who have maintained the system for nineteen years. The president will ask their opinion after the meeting.
Requirements
You need to leave the room with:
approval to hire 8 engineers
a multi-year budget, with the first year guaranteed
authorization for phase 1 to start in 60 days
Constraints
30 minutes, including questions
the board has no technical background
the 2019 ERP is a living reference for a technology project
that went wrong
the operations director has de facto veto power,
though not formal
the annual budget is approved in November; we are in September
the two people who run the system are not in the room and will be
consulted afterwards
Your Task
Produce:
- The ask, in one sentence, to be said in the first thirty seconds.
- The reason, with a number that does not come from the technology group.
- What happens if nothing is done, with a date.
- The three most likely objections and the answer to each.
- What you do in the one-on-one conversations before the meeting — with whom, and what you ask.
- The closing, with what was left out and why.
Questions You Should Be Asking
what is each person in the room's currency?
which number in this proposal does finance recognize
as trustworthy?
what did the 2019 ERP do wrong, and how is this proposal
different?
what does the operations director need to hear so she doesn't veto?
what will the two people who run the system say when they are
consulted?
what is the smallest approval that unblocks phase 1?
The last is the most useful. You may not need everything now.
Assessment Criteria
Your answer is good if:
- The ask comes first, before any context. Thirty minutes with a board does not accommodate the engineering order.
- The number does not come from technology. The 30-month regulatory deadline with a fine comes from legal; the two people's retirement comes from HR. Numbers engineering produces about itself are discounted by someone who has already watched an ERP blow up.
- The consequence of not doing it has a date. "The two people retire in 2030 and 2033, and training a replacement took two and a half years on the last attempt" is a sentence with a date and a track record.
- The 2019 ERP objection is addressed before it is made. It will be made.
- The operations director was talked to beforehand. Her veto is real, and the argument that disarms it — no change during the four months of harvest — is in the plan, not in the presentation.
- You identified the smallest sufficient approval. Perhaps phase 1 fits in the current budget, and the multi-year one can wait until November.
Your answer is weak if it is exercise 08's architecture translated into simpler language. Simplifying is not translating.
Discussion
:::details Open after trying
The first thirty seconds decide the meeting:
"I'm asking for authorization to hire eight engineers and start in
60 days a modernization of the harvest purchasing system.
The immediate reason: the traceability regulation has a 30-month
deadline and a fine. The two people who can work on the system
estimated 14 months to implement it in there, and they
retire in 2030 and 2033.
If we do nothing, we arrive in 2030 with a system
nobody knows how to change and a regulation to meet."
Not one word about architecture. The board doesn't decide architecture; it decides whether to allocate capital in the face of a risk.
The number that isn't yours. The regulatory fine and the retirement dates are external facts. The 14-month estimate belongs to the two people, not to you — and citing them as the source has an additional effect: when the president consults them afterwards, they will recognize their own number.
The 2019 ERP will be raised, and the answer has to be ready:
"The ERP was a complete replacement, with a big-bang cutover and
a budget fixed at the start. This proposal is the opposite: each
phase delivers something that works on its own, and you can stop
at the end of any of them.
Phase 1 costs X and delivers the farmer's app in four
months. If it doesn't deliver, you don't approve phase 2."
That converts a history of failure into an argument in favor: the proposal's structure answers exactly what went wrong before.
The operations director is not convinced in the meeting. She is convinced in the fifteen-minute conversation, two days earlier, in which you ask what worries her — and she says "April" — and you show that the schedule has four months of freeze a year, and ask her to review the dates.
In the meeting, she supports it. That is worth more than any slide.
The two people outside the room are the stakeholder easiest to forget and the most capable of sinking the proposal. They have to have been talked to beforehand, and their role in the proposal has to be one of authority — not a source to be drained before retirement.
If they tell the president "we agree, and the plan puts us deciding what is right", the approval is a formality. If they say "they're going to throw away nineteen years", it's over.
The smallest sufficient approval is the question that unblocks the most meetings: perhaps phase 1 fits in the already-approved budget, and today's ask is just authorization to start — with the multi-year one in November, with phase 1's result already in hand.
Asking for less, with a result before asking for more, is frequently the fastest route to getting everything.
The closing:
"To summarize: eight people, starting in 60 days, with phase 1
delivering the farmer's app in four months and the regulatory
deadline covered in month 12.
What is not in this proposal: the complete replacement of the
system. It will take more than 30 months and I am not going to ask
for budget for it today.
The risk I see: if we can't hire the eight
people in three months, the regulatory deadline gets tight. I'll bring
the hiring progress in December."
Saying what is not being asked for, and naming your own risk, is what separates a proposal from a sale. Boards approve proposals.
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