No One’s perfect

One of the common causes of project failures is that the project
sponsor demands that the project manager must finish the job by
a certain time, within budget, and at a given magnitude or scope,
while achieving specific performance levels. In other words, the
sponsor dictates all four of the project constraints. This doesn’t
work.
The relationship among the PCTS constraints can be written
as follows:
C = f(P, T, S)
In words, this says, “Cost is a function of Performance, Time, and
Scope.” Graphically, I like to show it as a triangle, in which P, C,
and T are the sides and S is the area. This is shown in Figure 1-1.
In geometry, we know that if we are given values for the
sides of a triangle, we can compute the area. Or, if we know the
area and the length of two sides, we can compute the length of
the remaining side. This translates into a very practical rule of
project management: The sponsor can assign values to any three
variables, but the project manager must determine the remaining
one.
So let’s assume that the sponsor requires certain performance,
time, and scope from the project. It is the project manager’s job to
determine what it will cost to achieve those results. However, I
always caution project managers that they should have a paramedic
standing by when they give the cost figure to the sponsor
because she will probably have a stroke or heart attack, and the
paramedic will have to revive her.
Invariably, the sponsor exclaims, “How can it cost that
much?” She had a figure in mind, and your number will always
exceed her figure. And she may say, “If it’s going to cost that
much, we can’t justify doing the job.” Exactly! And that is the decision
she should make. But she is certain to try to get the project
manager to commit to a lower number, and, if you do, then you
only set up yourself—and her—to take a big fall later on.
It is your obligation to give the sponsor a valid cost so that she
can make a valid decision about whether or not the project should
be done. If you allow yourself to be intimidated into committing to
a lower number, it is just going to be a disaster later on, and you are
far better off taking your lumps now than being hanged later on.
Of course, there is another possibility. If she says she can afford
only so much for the job, then you can offer to reduce the scope.
If the job is viable at that scope level, then the project can be done.
Otherwise, it is prudent to forget this project and do something
else that can make profits for the company. As someone has said,
there is a higher probability that things will accidentally go wrong
in a project than that they will accidently go right. In terms of cost
estimates, this means that there is always
a higher likelihood that the budget will
be overrun than that the project will
come in below budget. This is just another
way of stating Murphy’s law, that
“whatever can go wrong will go wrong.”