LESSONS LEARNED...

"It’s all good, it’s all good, it’s all good…" (said in a voice and tone reminiscent of Hal in 2010).
I’d like o hit him/her in the forehead with a hammer just to see if he/she’d react, and possibly scream “SHIT!”

I attended a five day Project Management advanced training course with eleven other project managers. It was extremely fast paced and intense. Yeah, like a fat man to cake.

The final exercise for the course was a project simulation with international requirements. Fascinating.
We were given basic requirements. The detailed requirements could only be obtained by asking the right questions. Fun shit!

“Something doesn’t feel right; we don’t have all the information,” I frowned.

“Yes we do. Let’s get it done!” Our cheerleader ‘lead’ squeaked. “There’s always a way!”

Oh shit! Those are words that can deal a death blow to any project.

“Okay then, you all go forward and I’m going to verify requirements, and more importantly constraints.

She just squeaked something that only bats could hear and ran off to give the team a pep talk.

The two seminar leaders sat observing and smiling as I walked up. “You may ask yes and no questions only,” the female leader smiled.

Ahhh, my instincts were right! So I proceeded to ask about timelines, volume and then I hit on it. I new the ‘upgrades’ were to be done in the North-East US, but…

“Are there more sites to be done on this project besides the six in the North East US?” I smiled.

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“And are the additional sites geographically dispersed, as in all over the country?”

“Yes,” they smiled.

“Hold on. Are some of them out of this country?”

“Yeeeeessssss,” they droned.

Looking over the original requirements it was stated that the project would start on three sites in the North-East, but it didn’t say that was all of the sites. Just like in Jurassic Park, “Do we have 500 dinosaurs?” The answers was ‘Yes’, but when asked “How many dinosaurs do we have?” The answer was 1,200.”

I then verified the severely constrained timeframe and without going to a chalk board, this project could not be done as stated.

I took my facts to the team and the lead said (I fucking swear) “We have to find a way. There’s always a way! Just keep a positive attitude!”

The two seminar leaders came over and asked if there was a problem. I said this project was a ‘no go’.
The rest of the team looked confused and the lead kept saying, “We can do it, we can do it.”

They should have realized when the seminar leaders asked if it could be done or not, what they were looking for, but nooooooo!

I went to the board and took ten minutes to draft out the timeframe and the sites, oh yeah and the countries, which totaled four. Even then after all the stink of the dry ease pens, the team lead still whispered, “There must be a way…”

Then the whole team in one resounding voice shouted: IT’S A NO GO!”

The seminar leaders sighed deeply and said, “You Passed! Not every project is do-able! As a project manager, sometimes the answer is NO!”

Ah, good times!