Critical Chain: A Business Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

significantly under budget and deliver more than was promised."

Those with any experience working in or with design engineers, which means about half the class, find it hard to believe such a claim.

"In the early fifties," I continue, "the Russians announced that they, too, had an atom bomb. That came as a total surprise. It became apparent to the U.S. that it had to find a way to monitor what the Russians were doing in their vast Asian territories."

"That's how the space satellite program started," one of the students guesses.

"I'm afraid that at that time satellites were to be found only in science fiction books," I have to disappoint him. "But, jet airplane technology was rapidly developing. One reputable engineer, Clarence "Kelly" L. Johnson, suggested building a plane that could fly at altitudes above the ceiling reached by fighter planes. Do you know how much time it takes to develop a new airplane? I mean from concept to an operational weapons system?"

"Over ten years," Brian says confidently. "I served in the Air Force."

"That's doesn't make you an expert, yet," Ted picks on him.

"Usually, it does take more than ten years," I confirm Brian's answer. "The U-2 was developed in a surprisingly short time. Eight months after start, this airplane was already flying over Russia, taking pictures."

"Until 1960, when Francis Gary Powers was shot down," Brian demonstrates that he does know the details.

Everybody is impressed. Slightly with Brian, mainly with the achievement of the people who built the U-2. The only one who looks skeptical is Fred. The accountant.

I look at him, raising one eyebrow. That's enough to make him start.

"You gave us two examples of major snafus, Professor Silver. Can you give us more?"

"No problem," I smile broadly, "how many would you like?"

"You also gave us one example of a major success. Can you give us more of those?"

"I'm afraid not," I admit, slightly embarrassed.

"Exactly as I suspected," Fred responds flatly.

Dear Fred has given me an excellent opportunity to drive home the conclusion I wanted them to reach, but I cannot control myself from asking, "Why did you have this suspicion?"

"From experience." And then he elaborates, "I have worked as a financial manager in three large companies. I have audited more new product development than I care to remember. And like every project auditor, I am quite cynical. Not that I haven't seen projects that do finish within the original, allotted budget, but they are the exceptions."

"That is probably the situation in design engineering," I confirm. "Charlie, is it much different in computer programming?"

"In computer programming we say that a project will always run out of time but never run out of excuses."

I join the laughter. When it dies down, Brian comments, "In the Air Force we always met the final due date." After three seconds he adds, "That means that we didn't meet the first due date that was set for the project, or the second one."

When I can finally speak again, I point at Ted, "What is the situation in the construction industry? Over there, there is less uncertainty regarding the content of the project."

"That's correct," he says. "Our projects are usually not so different from each other so we have a lot of experience." And grinning, he adds, "We also have a lot of experience using any change requested by the client to cover our butts for cost or time overruns."

I glance at my watch. It's time to start summarizing. "Can we conclude," I ask the class, "that the problems common to all projects are," and turning to the board I write as I continue to talk, "the high probability of, 1. Budget overruns; 2. Time overruns; and many times, 3. Compromising the content."

Wall to wall consensus.

"We tend to blame it, in each specific project, on one string of bad luck or another. In my eyes, the U-2 project is important because it's different. It's unlikely that they succeeded in finishing in less than one-tenth the time just