sounds very familiar

"How long will it take?"

"X months"

"Great! X minus 3 months!"

"How long did they say it would take?"

"X minus 6 months!"

"Great! X minus 6 months!"

...etc...

Sigh.

I expect it will all be covered here and has been by Scott Adams many times, but here are my criticisms...

1) Stop allowing well-paid managers with absolutely no clue about IT to make the buying decisions. They invariably go for the 3rd party with the cheapest option or the best presentation and they are invariably crap.

2) DO NOT allow scope creep. Stick to what you want, not "Ooh can we have this as well? Free, if possible?" FFS

3) If you bring in contractors to work on in-house systems which they've never seen before, don't be surprised when they deliver crap.

4) When the project is behind, DO NOT bring in more managers - lack of managers is not your problem.

5) When developers (lack of which IS your problem) tell you that there is no way the project will make the go-live date, don't implement [an unusable system] early to save your corporate arse and your fat bonus.

Well, I'm sure others will fill in the bits I missed...