I'm in IT. I'm responsible for project management including finding and managing vendors/ contractors. The industry I'm in isn't very big in my country, people know each other.
I myself work for a big company, which however, tends to be unreliable. I've been in this situation several times:
- I have a go for a project and a timeline.
- So I find an external contractor, a small company that can deliver us some service or technology. We discuss the terms, the would-be partner organization invests plenty of time in the cooperation already at this stage: meetings to define the scope, contract negotiations, etc.
- Then the wind blows the other way and the people who approved the project reject it. Or they ask me to present it again.
- All that takes time. The partner organization is waiting. I can only give them a heads-up that, unfortunately, we need to wait and I will keep them posted. This can take months and repeat several times with several stakeholders. The contractors get impatient and sometimes in the end bail on us.
This is problematic, cause I'm burning bridges in the industry.
Not to mention that I have to search for new contractors again and again and there aren't so many local ones. And I waste plenty of time.
On the other hand, I do my job correctly - I only search for partners after what appears to be the final go. The approvals I get are from the right people - It's just those people change their opinion a lot. I'm starting to feel ashamed to represent my company.