Project Management

In more opportunities than I actually would like to admit, project buyers asked me how fast we could go if we hired more personnel.

My traditional response to this kind of query is to point to the fact that it is impossible to conceive a one-month-child just by putting nine pregnant women to labor together. There are things that are simply impractical - if not impossible.

It might be some trauma of mine but I have never seen projects finishing up quicker just because more people were brought to it. There was some kind of mathematical or economical basic principle behind it that I learned back in University but can’t remember how it is called.

If projects are to be constrained into tight deadlines (and they normally are), my constant pursuit is to use creativity and ultimately find some breakthrough solution that will really make a difference - performance-wise.

The main difficulty with this approach is that buyers might feel insecure when putting their stakes upon a creativity route. On a certain project of mine, our team was working hard on a framework structure that would ultimately reduce 70% of work needed in later phases of the project.

The cost for this breakthrough solution would be to spend the first weeks of the project schedule implementing this framework instead of doing nice screens for the executive team. The buyer felt it was too risky and decided to swap into standard technologies and traditional approaches in order to have the screens for the executive board as quick as possible.

The project was finally delayed by more than twice its planned schedule and ultimately it was canceled representing a major loss for a couple of players involved.