Retrospective: Three Vendors, One Project

We owned the middle platform, another vendor supplied hardware and a third provided industry software. Three contracts, one schedule. The project slipped two months and blame was hard to assign, but the lessons were clear.

Three collaboration problems

Unclear interface ownership. The hardware vendor expected us to adapt their format; we expected them to provide a standard output.

Separate test environments. Each vendor built its own, versions diverged, and issues could not be reproduced.

Meetings without conclusions. Every three-way call was thorough, but nobody recorded who would do what and when.

What we do now

At kickoff, an interface agreement lists fields, formats and owners, signed by all three parties.

One shared test environment, maintained by the integrator, with vendors connecting only through agreed channels.

Every meeting produces an action list with owners and deadlines; the next meeting reviews it first.

Multi-party projects demand coordination more than coding. Writing responsibilities clearly protects the schedule better than writing elegant code.