why does it go as it does in our department?

Year after year I see departments and companies wonder why they are so busy, have so much stress, have so many rescues or always is behind. "Because," as they say "it doesn't look wrong when we look at the bookings and work load from now on."

 The problem is that the measuring unit 'load' is far too little nuanced. Try to see these three figures. The first is that which provides a safe, but false image of the situation. The next show that most of our load is in high risk projects - projects which will almost certainly eat far more resources than planned. Finally, the last shows how desperate we are forced to be, because our entire profit is planned to come from higher-risk projects!