Bob

Long long ago in a galaxy far far away.

Here we go again, he is off on one of his stories from yesteryear. Yes I am and this one has nothing to do with QA or Agile. Its a project management experience and some of you will definitely recognise it as true (despite my attempts to cover who it was and making a few embellishes here and there) - because you were present.

Mid 1980's working on an avionics project for an overseas government - in partnership with several other large UK defence companies. Me? I was just starting to make a go of this team leadership thing.

Our project was scheduled originally to be about 18 months in duration and was delivering some technically advanced (some say world leading) kit. The MOD was involved simply to say it was ok to send this stuff to a foreign country.

Well about a year in, we had discovered we were in a bit of a mess. We were in that nightmare situation where we were behind schedule against our plan and most of us had worked out our plan was rubbish. Some of my peers and brave superiors had even summoned up the strength of will to escalate the topic.

What do you need at a time like this? You need a hero. A unifying brave, wise figure who can sort the chaos and put us back on the path to success.

Did we had one of those? Well, we had someone called Bob.

The word of our disaster had reached the directors of our great defence conglomerate and Bob had been told to get his backside down to us and sort us out. I should add, We all knew Bob. We all had history with him. He had been our boss previously and was definitely much respected and by some of us, very much admired.

So Bob called us all together (all the team leads and senior managers on the project) for a planning "discussion". He gave us all chance to speak. Asking us questions like: "How is it going?", "Will we make our dates?", "what do you think our biggest risks are? and so on. I must admit I remember thinking at the time - this isn't very much fun is it?

And then after about 20 minutes or so, he hit us. From nowhere came a question so brilliant in its simplicity and so deep in its understanding of the problem space it has lived with me for nearly 40 years in my foreground memory. Bob asked us this question (I really hope I remember it correctly after that build up): How does an 18 month project get to be 2 years behind schedule after a year of work?

And he went round the room one by one. Looking each of us clearly in the eyes and asked us directly. I could not return the look! I was so embarrassed at my inability to respond. My only solace lay in the fact that better men and women than me struggled to articulate an answer with any sense in it.

None of us could answer really. So Bob answered his own question: I will tell you shall I? One day at a time!!!!! Everyday you go home having not achieved what YOUR plan that you created said you would achieve. You put the project a day behind!

There was a period of silence. And then Bob started up again.

This is what we are going to do:

We will form a new plan. You (thats all of us) will go and plan every single day until the end of the project in absolute detail and we will put that plan together and I will go to the board and our customers and present this plan. And then we will execute it. There will not be another opportunity granted.

I do remember seeing our combined effort plan up on the walls around the building - it stretched for miles!

Of course we delivered! And although our initial losses were huge, eventually we even made a profit (but that took quite a while).

What did I take from this?

• Its my plan - so I would do well to deliver it and excuses don't really cut it - I should have planned better and shouted louder if the plan was not going to work.
• What you did today matters!
• Bob was a bloody genius