Preparing for Mark (2004)

Mark was coming to our office.

He was the head of the IT arm of one of world's largest travel companies who were planning to implement Oracle Apps worldwide. Our organization was trying to get a slice of the pie.

The previous day we had an internal meeting.

"Mark want to meet the team here" informed our program manager, "we will have a team meeting with him tomorrow"

"What is the agenda?" one of us asked.

"We have to demonstrate our knowledge of the domain, the product, the technology and the implementation methodology (AIM)" replied the boss.

"When introducing ourselves we will mention our name, our Oracle Apps experience and our experience in using AIM" continued the boss.

All of us were ready for Mark.

The next day's team meeting went on expected lines. Each of us will get up, and like parrots, repeat 'Hi Mark, my name is ..........., I am a functional consultant with..... years of domain experience and ...... years in apps. I have worked on GL, AP......and have been a part of multiple implementations. I always ensure to follow AIM systematically and methodically to get the best results in our implementation....'

This went on and on. During all this Mark's face was inscrutable and our program manager's face was getting swollen with pride.

And finally it was Mark's turn.

"I see that all of you have done a lot of work using AIM" he observed.

All heads nodded in assent.

"That is funny, because our organization do not believe in AIM. We feel that it is documentation intensive." He had a naughty smile which suggested that he knew about our team meeting the previous day.

Only sound that could be heard was that of our program manager picking up the broken pieces.