Critical Chain - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [9]
Others are interacting with, or even conducting projects. Like Ruth in marketing; Fred, an accountant who also audited some projects, and Brian, who is involved in the expansion of his plant. What is very good is that between them they cover a broad spectrum of project environments. But that is also dangerous. If I do not succeed in steering them to concentrate on what is common to all their projects, we are bound to flounder all over the map.
That is why I don't inquire about their specific projects. Rather, I ask, "The channel tunnel, what do you know about it?"
Ted, my redheaded student, is the first to comment. "Isn't it the train tunnel between England and France?" When I confirm, he continues, "I read that they have huge budget overruns."
"In the billions," Fred, our accountant, adds.
"It became such a big problem," Ted is on a roll, "that at one point they contemplated stripping some of the ambitious original design."
To encourage more conversation I ask the class, "What else?"
Ruth, in the front row, picks up the ball. "I saw the grand opening of those tunnels on TV. The queen herself christened it. The opening was a few months late and they were still unable to run trains."
"A classic example," I summarize, "of a project that didn't finish on time or on budget."
I give them another famous example; the oil rig platforms in the North Sea. These oil rigs are enormous plants built three hundred meters above the floor of one of the most stormy oceans in the world. From each platform they drill not one, but many, oil wells. They drill at angles of up to 57 degrees to hit oil three kilometers below the surface. Then they have to separate the oil from the sand before pumping it through pipes to shore. No wonder the investment in each one of those huge projects is close to four billion dollars. One might think that after putting up several of these big babies they would have their act together. It's not the case. It's been said that they plan a project meticulously, then multiply by four and pray.
"Well," I tell the class, "prayers are clearly insufficient. In the early nineties the top gun of StatOil, the Norwegian oil company, was forced to resign due to mammoth overruns on one of these projects.
"You see, Mark," I jokingly add, "you are not the only one whose project does not meet its due date. At least in your case, you are not going to run over budget."
"Yes, I will," he calls out, and then explains. "The project manager before me, the one who so carelessly spread promises, is now my boss. He is determined to save face, so he has forced me to take on more people and use expensive subcontractors. We definitely are going to be over budget, the only question is by how much."
"There is another question. Who is going to be blamed for it?" I add.
"Not him, I'm afraid. Knowing my boss, I'm definitely the one going to be blamed."
"So what are you going to do?" Charlie, our software manager, is sincerely concerned.
"Nothing," Mark brushes it off. "In engineering, every project is overrun and overdue. Besides, there is another tack. When push comes to shove, we will reduce the targeted specifications of the project."
To stress this last but important point, I ask, "Do you do it frequently?"
"More than we like to admit," he answers.
"Has anybody else come across a project that due to its overruns and its being overdue, compromised on its original specifications?"
"I don't know if you can call it compromising the original specifications," Brian comments, "but when they finished our new offices, only four months after they were due, we moved in only to find out we didn't have desks, and the air conditioning was not yet functioning."
Before I have a chance to comment, Charlie confidently states, "Everybody knows that projects don't finish on time or on budget, and if they do it means they had to compromise on content. Especially in systems programming or product design."
"That is not necessarily the case," I say. "Occasionally, there are design engineering