And when speaking to the decision-makers, discuss the trade-offs and/or offer options. "If we try to deliver pkg DEF on the date you promised, we will have the quality problems that we had with ABC. . .and here the reasons why. . .and the customer will be just as pissed. But we can deliver the most critical, highly-valued 30% of DEF on the date that you promised. . .and the rest 6 weeks later. From a business perspective, the customer only needs that 30% at first, and this phased approach guarantees that both deliverables will be of high quality."
And when speaking to the decision-makers, discuss the trade-offs and/or offer options.
Yes, exactly. I should have said something about that in my little mini-rant above, but I ran out of time or lost my train of thought. That's it in a nutshell though... be able to talk about the relative advantages and disadvantages of various options, and - more specifically - do so in the context of what serves the long-term interests of the business.
