When documents are cheating - you!

Especially with early documents such as Project proposal,s Project Idea Descriptions etc. one must be careful because they are often formulated and written by PA's or similar ministering spirits. Therefore it may very well be the case that one half thought out idea from the boss suddenly appears as an articulate, organized and such straight-to-go-to document. But the reality is just that the writer has made ​​it from own experience of the situation and not least of possible approaches!

Well you say - will it not be discover it when the boss sees it through? No, a good boss will only look at whether the overall things are in place and not the details.

The problem is that your imagination that this particular puzzle solving approved is made by the boss and therefor following it too far.

So what do you do? You go through the document with the writer and then asks into the whole process and get clarification on what is decided and what is open. Expect that 80% of the solution space is open for discussion - if you want to discuss!

News from The Risk Doctor

For your collection of risks this time you get from David Hillson five categories of risks connected with delivering project deliverables across borders. Read the newsletter here.

Nanny for your supplier?

The worst situation you as a project manager can end up in is the where you have to help your supplier to deliver that which this particular supplier was originally carefully selected to be best at. Now it turns out, unfortunately, that the supplier  nevertheless not really has the capability, but since you did have large fingerprints on the choice and the decision of the supplier, you can not quite tell you free of guilt, and you feel therefore pressured to help the supplier. Once you've done this a few times, you are so entangled in the case that you can not stop. Either the supplier succeed and therefore you or you will go down together!
What went wrong? Yes, it was either in the selection or in your handling of the first signs of a lack of ability to deliver.
In the selection process could be: 1) No supplier met the requirements you had set. Instead of realizing that you and your client / boss / management may reduce the requirements, you get it legalized taking the best of them instead - and then you're already into it!
2) You thought that it is the supplier's own problem if they claim they could provide and then can not do it! But the reality is, because your client / boss / management can not wait for the supplier to get a grip on things, or you find another - "there are millions at stake ..." echoes in your ears when you try to fall asleep. It ends again to be your problem.
At the first sign it could be: You failed to use the contract to what is actually being written for
You showed confidence rather than seek certainty
You showed understanding in the hope that they probably would quickly solve the problems

So you have been warned! It is not about being tough on suppliers. No, it is about certainty!

When do we learn from billion losses?

When the Dansih police now scrap the project Polsag it is a repetition of several public scandal projects with the following baking recipe (for free use):

1. In order to manage the supplier this time we specify the system even more precisely than we have ever done before
2. We send the contract (for we must in the EU) to get the cheapest price
3. Suppliers give offer that barely make any profit for them
4. We choose the cheapest supplier (for otherwise there will probably be ballad)
5. We begin
6. We become wiser about what we really should have asked for from the start
7. We get expensive offers on the changes, for now, the supplier must have the profits home
8. We get annoyed about the prices and cooperation becomes strained
9. Independent consultants are called in for advices like ‘better management’ and ‘tight control’ with no practical usefulness at all
10. Now repeated steps 6 to 9 in a few years until everyone is so tired of everything and the budget is blown up many times that we continue to step 11
11. We cancel the project, find somebody to blame and start a new project in Step 1