Tales from the Woods: In which Eeyore discovers the Cons in Projects

“Hello, Rabbit,” he said, “Is that you?”

“Let’s pretend it isn’t,” said Rabbit, “And see what happens.”

Winnie-the-Pooh

Some things just are! No matter what you do to them or how you look at them or how you hide them, there is an ‘are-ness’ about them which is irrefutable.  The Projekt was in trouble and no matter how hard Eeyore stared at the pots, the Projekt was still in trouble. 

On the face of it the Projekt was simple.  Owl had asked him to cook Spaghetti Bolognese for sixty woodland creatures.  He had given Eeyore two big pots to cook in.  Eyeore started with a simple plan: one big pot of spaghetti, one big pot of Bolognese sauce, apply heat, season to taste and ‘Viola’. (Eeyore always struggled with the difference between stringed musical instruments and emphatic expressions).

It was Kanga that pointed out that many of the woodland creatures were vegetarian.  Kanga was driving Roo through the Woods in a large lorry and trailer and she shouted at Eeyore, “What about the Vegetarians!”

The shock of the ‘vegetarian issue’ was overshadowed by the sight of a marsupial behind the wheel of a articulated vehicle.

“Mother-trucker,” shouted Eeyore, simultaneously acknowledging Kanga as she drove by and expressing a level of frustration.

It was clear that a vegetarian Bolognese sauce would require an extra pot – which Eeyore didn’t have. 

“We need to reschedule,” said Piglet.  Fortunately, Eeyore already had a solution.  Owl had not said that the sauce had to be hot, therefore, Eeyore planned to cook one sauce following the other.  He called it re-saucing. Unfortunately, this did not actually solve the pot problem, but Eeyore was none the wiser.

Piglet went on his way having made a small but important contribution to the story line.

The new problem was that Eeyore had made the plan and according to the plan everything should be ok. The plan was a good plan – it had timing, pasta and everything.  Eeyore had worked out what had be done, when it had to be done by and how many ‘re-sauces’ were needed to do it. He had even put in some CON-tingency to account for the Unknowns, of which there were a few (CON-tingency was a made-up projekt thingy that helped persuade people that a projekt might work despite the Unknowns).  

Of course the problem with Unknowns, by their very definition, is that people tend not to, well, know them. So Eeyore had done some really good guessing and had CON-vinced himself that he had guessed them all (to CON-vince is the art of making someone believe that a made-up thingy is in fact a real thingy). 

He was, of course, working under some management CON-straints around pots and ‘re-sauces’ (a CON-straint was a made-up projekt thingy that Management used to make Projekt Managers do 'less with more').  The less astute reader may be thinking that surely you mean ‘more with less’, however, Eeyore’s experience had shown him that when working within management CON-straints he often, ended up doing less with more - it was only a matter of time.  

So despite the CON-straints (ineffectively dealt with by the presence of CON-tingency), Eeyore had CON-vinced himself that the Projekt was under CON-trol.  (CON-trol wasn’t even a made-up thingy, CON-trol aspired to being made-up. CON-trol was an illusion.  It was an intangible thingy that people used to CON-vince themselves that they were managing something that really cannot be managed.)  

It occurred to Eeyore that there were a lot of CONs associated with projekts in general and this Projekt in particular.  This started him thinking.  The Projekt was CON-suming ‘re-sauces’ (and pots) faster than what was in the plan. (CON-sume meant making important made-up thingys disappear.)  To be more accurate the Projekt was actually CON-suming more pots - ever since Tigger announced he was a Vegan.  Eeyore now needed an extra ‘re-sauce’ … or an extra pot. 

Of course, dear reader, I could elaborate on what happened when Eeyore found out that 2 of the animals were gluten intolerant, one was lactose intolerant and one was just plain intolerant.  The code of the CON is to know just enough about everything so you can lie about anything. I could also have just picked more CON words and flogged that approach, clearly that would have been CON-voluted (CON-voluted is when a blog writer picks a theme and takes it just one CON word too far!)