By Az Shah

Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

Confucius
Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC – 479 BC)

A criminal IT project comes to mind with a fantastic blend of ignorance and arrogance, delivered by the “Best in the market” protected by some fancy legal protection.

Introducing to the once leading supermarket chain, sad to see a lead taken by Tesco, keen to get the lead back.

Entered (Sir) Peter Davies, he rejoined Sainsbury’s on1 March 2000 as CEO and implemented a £3bn investment in upgrading IT systems.

The what happened next is a project plan from Hades;

1. Select one of the “top 5” big expensive and best
2. Externalize the business operation
3. Ignore the day job and jobbers
4. Inject testosterone at doses that make it possible to win a Tour De France Stage
5. Respect aggression, “Shout about it !”
6. “Supply” the best in robotic warehousing money can buy
7. Employ John Cleese to make staff feel like Manuel fromFawltyTowers

What happened?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/sainsburys_v_accenture/

The captain of the ship did not go down, but went onto to bigger and better,

The in-house IT Crowd got a good kicking, as every action hero knows, it’s always good to have a fall guy,

Oh yes and some good youtube advertisement of Tesco signing  John Cleese about ;