365 Days of Stories – Day 13: Turning Around a High-Stakes Automation Project
Though I had decided to go back to a job, I knew my mission to solve traffic problems wasn’t over. I told myself—I’ll return to it when the time is right. Stay tuned for what happens to my first startup later!
For now, let’s dive into my corporate journey post-entrepreneurship.
Something interesting happened—for the next 10 years, I found myself repeatedly handling troubled accounts. Every project I joined was already in deep trouble, and my role was to turn it around.
Managing difficult situations, making tough calls, and being direct with leadership became second nature to me.
I’ll share stories from these challenging projects—real situations, real lessons, but without disclosing specifics due to confidentiality.
The First Turnaround Challenge
I joined a large enterprise account where my boss told me:
📌 The company had committed to automating 400 processes in one year. 📌 Only 40% were completed in 8 months—leaving 60% (240 processes) to be done in 4 months. 📌 The project was a personal initiative of the company’s MD—if we failed, the contract was at risk.
🚀 First Day, First Reality Check
My first customer meeting was intense—two key stakeholders asked:
💬 “What’s going on? What’s the plan?”
I was honest: 👉 “I need to fully understand the current state first. What’s your assessment of what’s going wrong?”
💡 Lesson #1: Transparency builds trust. Instead of giving a scripted answer, I openly acknowledged the situation. The stakeholder appreciated my approach.
🚀 Digging Deeper: Identifying the Real Issue
After meeting senior team members, I uncovered the core problem: 📌 Lack of business involvement. Teams weren’t getting the required support from business leaders to define automation requirements.
📊 I analyzed 8 months of data and presented it to the customer, proving that: 👉 Even with the best tech execution, without a strong pipeline of business requirements, we wouldn’t reach the 400-process target.
🚀 Escalating the Issue to the Right Level
I met with the customer’s program manager and suggested escalating to the MD. We needed: ✔ Clear prioritization from business leaders. ✔ Top-down alignment on automation goals.
The MD stepped in, and within weeks, all business leaders aligned their priorities to the project.
💡 Lesson #2: Strategic projects need top-down alignment. When priorities aren’t clear, execution suffers.
💡 Lesson #3: You can’t sugarcoat problems in a crisis. When things are in trouble, be upfront with the highest decision-makers—they’re responsible for success.
See You Tomorrow for Another Story!
Would love to hear—have you ever faced a situation where priorities weren’t aligned, and it stalled progress? How did you handle it?
👇 Drop your thoughts in the comments!
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