ContextI was the fourth project manager on a long-running initiative.The project had already gone through three different contractual setups: fixed price, time and materials, and finally a feature-driven agreement. Despite the changing structures, all billing still ran through a single contract number. There was no formal handover or clear boundary between contracts. As a result, […]
ContextThe idea was solid.Project teams are often expected to function as if they are already aligned. But in reality, most start fragmented. They speak different work languages, have no shared history, no mutual expectations, and not enough trust to perform well under pressure. On the other side, teams that went through a hard project often
ContextI was assigned to run a project for the business side. The plan looked straightforward. Until you compared the numbers. I was given three extremely senior consultants. The budget had been written for juniors. The timeline required the seniors. I was warned by colleagues: “Don’t let them make this your problem.” The DragBut they did.
ContextIt started with a simple request. A small change was needed, but no one could say who owned the topic. Every name led to another. Every question led to a redirect. The DragWhen I tried to organize a kick-off, the calendar invite kept getting forwarded. Everyone added someone “just to be sure.” By the time
ContextThe project wasn’t moving. Developers weren’t delivering. Management assumed the business analyst was overworked, so they brought in a second one – me. But the issue wasn’t workload. It was friction. Geneva was the business side. Madrid was managing. Budapest held the analysts. India was coding. The geography alone made it political. And the project
ContextI was brought in as a technical resource, but got temporarily pushed into the project manager role when a persistent failure appeared in the service request pipeline. At random times, service requests would disappear. No error. No retry. Just lost. The DragThree weeks of deep diagnostics followed. Logs were combed. Simulations were run. Nothing reproduced
ContextAnother data stream, another swamp of mismatches, formatting errors, missing values, and contradictory fields. The receiving side knew the drill. We had already defined how to handle each type of data issue. Exception handling was in place. Rejection logic was mapped. Everyone assumed we were in control. The DragDespite the planning, errors kept piling up.
ContextThe implementation team had recently been absorbed by a larger company. The change in ownership brought new reporting lines, new stakeholders, and no real continuity. Both sides of the project, customer and vendor, became cautious and political. Roles blurred. Trust eroded. The DragAt one point, a senior stakeholder on the customer side stated he would
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ContextThe task was straightforward. Migrate a large HR dataset, around 250,000 records, from the old system to the new. I was responsible for the transformation, validation, and import logic. On paper, everything looked good. For weeks, I processed file after file. Numbers lined up. Nothing flagged as wrong. Until the final QA round. The DragRoughly
ContextThe bank was replacing a locally built HR system with one that could support international operations. The goal was clear: enable growth across multiple countries. External conditions weren’t ideal. The 2006 Lebanon War created logistical delays. But most of the friction came from within the organization. The DragLate in the process, someone introduced a requirement:
