It started like any other project. We had a scope statement, a diverse team, a list of interested contractors, and the enthusiastic support of management. We even had binders with an indexed list of the plans deemed essential for successful projects: communication, change management, risk management, and all the others. And although we had challenging cost and schedule requirements, we knew we had an excellent plan. Nothing could prevent us from delivering this project on time and under budget. At least, that is what we thought!

We had hardly started when trouble struck. The first hint of a problem came in the form of questions about our spending curve. The company was concerned about its overall capital spending and it was looking for opportunities to delay major expenditures into the next fiscal year. We were able to oblige initially. We reassessed our schedule and proudly offered a new plan with the most expensive scope deferred to late in the project. The best news was that we would still meet our original cost and schedule commitments.

Our excitement was short lived. No sooner had we submitted our new plan than we were asked to reduce our early spending even more. In fact, each new plan drew the same request. Eventually, we had to admit we could no longer complete the project on time. That is when the second blow struck. We were informed the project was no longer a top priority. In fact, some members of management were advocating our project be canceled. Morale within the project team plummeted to a new low. Just a few short weeks earlier, our project had been priority #1. Success was guaranteed. Now we were on the verge of being shut down.

Our project was intended to increase production by modifying each of our 21 paper machines at four manufacturing plants located throughout the USA. Generally, we were to install control devices designed to reduce defects and allow us to speed up the machines. Some of the technology was new, even unproven, but our technical experts assured us it would work as intended. “A no brainer” they called it. And so we had developed a comprehensive list of which devices were to be installed on which machines, and how much additional production we could expect from each.

However, our sales volume was not developing as anticipated. And as disappointing monthly sales reports continued to accumulate, management became increasingly reluctant to spend any money on increasing production. Eventually we were ordered to put the project on hold, but to be ready to restart at any moment.

It was time for a new strategy. And since we were no longer under a time constraint we decided to reduce our risk by prototyping each of the technologies included in the original scope. We installed and tested each device on a different paper machine. To our surprise, some did not work as intended. They were not the key to increasing the production rate we expected. Some even had the opposite effect. They produced unintended side effects that caused a decrease in production. But fortunately, not all were failures. Some worked much better than we expected, enabling us to increase the production rate by two or three times the amount we had initially estimated.

The obvious solution at this point was to modify our scope. Clearly, we could achieve the same overall production increase by just installing the devices that worked better than expected and abandoning the others. But an even better strategy began to emerge. As the technical experts analyzed the results of our prototypes, new ideas arose. The experts identified modifications that could work even better than the devices that had proven successful. And so we prototyped these ideas too. And as we now expected, some worked and some did not. And the results prompted even more ideas.

Eventually, the company’s sales began to recover and management started asking for increased production. By this time, we had a menu of proven technologies ready for installation. And we were therefore able to quickly reapply the modifications that provided the best return on investment.

But we now had a proven strategy and we resisted the temptation to deviate. We continued to encourage new ideas, but then insisted on testing them on a single paper machine before declaring them ready for reapplication.

We eventually ran out of money five years after the project was initially authorized, and more than three years after our original completion date. But by this time, we had added three times the production increase we had initially promised. We still had to complete all the paper work to explain why we changed the scope and missed our completion date, of course, but nobody really cared. The real project objective was to increase production at an affordable cost, and we had succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.

Real evidence of success came when the company asked us to submit the paper work to initiate another project. This time, we admitted our scope was a guess and sure to be wrong. But management did not care. They just told us to continue with the same approach, and gave us the amount we requested. It was the easiest project approval I ever experienced.

Clearly, if we had treated this as a traditional project we would have failed. We would have achieved our initial cost and schedule commitments, but produced only a fraction of the production increase we promised. Fortunately, unexpected problems arose and we were forced to develop a strategy much more appropriate for the situation. And we delivered what the company really wanted: additional production at an affordable cost.

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