How To Make Your Project Go Badly Wrong E-Book

David E. Winter

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Badly Wrong
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 127

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

How to Make Your Project Go Badly Wrong is a satirical guide on how to exploit and derail project management for personal gain. The book humorously advises readers on identifying and amplifying inefficiencies, intentionally causing delays, and avoiding accountability to maximize profit. It suggests subtly undermining project goals and emphasizes the potential to profit by prolonging timelines and creating confusion. While playful, it also contrasts good practices in colored text as a nod to actual project management principles. At its core, the book mocks corporate bureaucracy and the sometimes self-serving nature of project environments.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

How This Book Will Line Your Pockets

Your Short Cut to Enhanced Earnings

What Can Project Destruction Do for You?

And Who Made Me The Drama Queen?

Some Industry Myths

Myth #1 - You can make a difference.

Myth #2 - Large Companies know what they are doing.

Myth #3 - Greater Effort Leads to Greater Reward

Myth #4 - Santa Clause doesn't exist

Myth #5 - We're here to help

Nuts and Bolts of Project Destruction

[A] Setting The Scene

[AA] What Project Management is NOT about

[AB] What Project Management IS

[AC] The True Economics of Projects

[B] Moving It Along

[BA] Your Project's Life Cycle

[BB] The Seven Components of Project Failure

[BC] Maximising Project Cost

[BD] The Efficiency Traps

[C] The Grand Finale

[CA] Cauterising Loose Ends

[CB] The Importance of Archives

[CC] Covering Your Tracks

[CD] Further Work - (If You Can Get It)

Tips for Success

Tip #1 - Keep a Journal

Tip #2 - Join the PHCC (Phc Consortium)

Tip #3 ...

What to Do Now

How To Make Your Project Go Badly Wrong

For fun and personal profit

How This Book Will Line Your Pockets

This book will help you develop your project destruction capability to the extent where you will recognise right from the Project Brief, the potential for your project’s stagnation to feed your personal profit stream!

It also has a positive side and throughout the pages of this book, whenever we stray into the positive side, the text changes to look like this (so you can see instantly what to disregard as material not related to project destruction) ... but let’s not allow any annoying little positives in shall we?

Let’s concentrate on full force destruction!

We're not talking blatant and brutal destruction here, but a much more sinister, pervasive kind of destruction that has the project going along nicely, but badly wrong, with no one (except you) knowing quite why!

And speaking of 'why', the reason I wrote this book is very probably the same reason you are reading it now. A wise man once said (it might even have been me) that the one true purpose of a project is to ensure the delivery a defined set of deliverables on time and within budget.

While I do agree with that statement wholeheartedly, my definition of 'project purpose' is very different: 

“The one true purpose of a project is to ensure the maximum flow of money to each individual project team member for as long as possible regardless of the project's planned timescale and budget.”

Much more interesting, and I am only putting into words here, the common unspoken creed of the vast majority of project participants everywhere, in every industry! All of the concepts, tips and ideas in this book have my definition at their core.

Who pays for all this? It’s the Project Owner.

But don't trouble yourself with remorse or guilt about that. The project owner is usually a large corporation, an Energy Industry giant. They have loads of money, and we want as much of that as we can get.

Oh and the other stakeholders. They pay for the project's inefficiency as well, indirectly. Government agencies for example, they have loads of money as well.

Also environmental groups, they in a way 'feel' the extension of a project through its effects on the environment. Greenhouse gasses, global warming etc. But the world's going to end soon anyway, so it doesn't matter to us. We are only interested in our slice of the project Pie. Right now! Today! From our current project! 

Oh and the end user. People like me and you, who end up paying more for our energy bills. Average Joe Public may not be so rich, but there are millions of them so they can afford collectively to pay for your extra earnings from the project you are destroying. 

Imagine for a moment that you found in the back of a taxi, a laptop containing National Insurance records for the entire UK population, complete with credit card details including pin codes. As a matter of fact, such a list did get out into the public arena in exactly that way a few years ago in the UK. 

Oh the fun you could have. Just taking a 'little bit' (say, £20) from every credit card account in the nation. You would soon gather a huge sum.

But don't worry about the legality of Project Destruction. What we're doing is all perfectly legal. Just highly immoral that’s all. But we don't care about that, as long as it can't be traced directly to us. We can contemplate the moral aspect while sitting on the veranda of our 5 star luxury hotel suite, looking out over glorious mountain scenery, while counting our money.

So to recap, what we're doing is lining our pockets from Project Destruction. No more worry about the project finishing early. No more stress from self imposed accountability and we’re leaving behind our imagined need to perform. Just an easy ride from now on. All because of the tips, tricks, instructions and insights you will find in this book.

Your Short Cut to Enhanced Earnings

There was a time when I was intent on doing good in the project world. Partly that involved doing diligently and enthusiastically all the work I was given, and doing it as well as I possibly could. Researching similar work that others had done, seeking advice from peers, checking progress often, liasing daily with the boss.

Then gradually I discovered that there were often times when I was either overlooked (no-one bothered to tell me about the office barbecue), undervalued (my overtime not authorised) or unappreciated (long hours, missed lunches, without even a 'thank you').  I was practically invisible. Mr Cellophane. 

Then one time I missed a deadline! Oh My God! 

What happened?... nothing. 

So I missed another. Then another.

The result each time? An extension to the time needed to complete the work. Another week or so to do work that could easily have been accomplished the week before, had I been motivated and keen. A week of earnings that I wouldn't have had before. I used to love deadlines for the challenge. Now I love them for different reasons entirely. 

Have you realised yet, the power of 'deadlines' in conjunction with your anonymity within your organisation? More importantly, have you learned how to take advantage of it? Keep reading, you will.

I gathered a decade (no, more) of example upon example of how to take such advantage, and now you can emulate what I have done, with the benefit of these pages. In the time it takes to read this book! 

Of course, mastery will take a little longer, as you do need to practice, but you will see your income INCREASE and extend, and your workload DECREASE to the minimum possible while still maintaining your professional credibility.

What Can Project Destruction Do for You?

You've no experience in making things go badly? You would feel awkward about doing something that is really quite morally wrong?

You don't think you deserve the 'loot' from a project destruction revenue stream? You simply 'can't see yourself in the role of a Project Destroyer?

Well these are all pretty poor reasons for suppression of positive action on implementing the concepts in this book. The only roadblocks and obstacles you need to recognise right now are these:

(1) You Don’t Have a System?

The Badly Wrong concept is not just a book; it is in fact a 'system' available online as a searchable data structure that lets you develop your own strategy for destruction based on the particular characteristics of your project. You make your own very simple system of daily activity from what you read in here.

(2) You Don’t Have Any Support?

The Badly Wrong concept is also a blog. Or at least a kind of blog. The difference is that is that project destroyers don't like to be exposed, for obvious reasons, so communications have to be anonymous. The data structure online, allows feedback by e-mail directly to me, on the contents of the book. Messages received are used to update the book for further revisions. So you have your say, and the chance to share some of your own experiences and suggestions but without exposing your identity to peers and superiors.

As your Project Destruction capability increases, you become part of a network of support. But still anonymous. So Support is not an issue.

(3) You Don’t Have A Mentor or Project Destruction Role Model?

If it’s a Mentor you want, or need, then look no further than the PHCC (PHC Consortium). You can join at one of three levels (1) Lurker, (2) Standard or (3) Mega Bucks. The Lurker level is free. If you subscribe at either of the other two paid levels, then you've got me personally as a mentor!

www.phcport.com/badlywrong (consortium)

(4) You Just Can’t Seem to Summon Commitment?

Don't have time for making an 'inverted positive difference' to your project's progress? Don't have time to earn extra money by adopting a few daily habits? Don't have the inclination to read a couple of chapters of a book that's informative, interesting and at times amusing? Can't get access to the Internet to download a couple of tools and interact with a central Project Destruction Knowledge Bank? Well, I suppose you’ve got me there, the 'no commitment' obstacle is a real one. 

But these people below (and me for that matter) didn't let obstacles like those get in their way of Project Destruction. Their testimonials are all anonymous of course, so believe them as you will. But once you've been 'wowed personally' by the Badly Wrong concept, then lets see if you can add your testimonial to the list (and we'll see if you can be brave enough NOT to be anonymous too!).

"This book would have been much more powerful, but David doesn't have a clue about how to discourage people. Doesn't seem to be in his nature. But the book definitely needs to have a dedicated 'discouraging people' section. I think I might write that part!"

Anonymous, Project Manager, Italian multi-national Oil Company.

"I’ve read the book, and now I know just about everything there is to know about Project Destruction. My eyes are opened!"

Anonymous, Commissioning Engineer, Dutch multi-national Oil Company.

"I’ve been following David’s teaching for years and now I’m really looking forward to a time when I don’t have to destroy projects. "

Anonymous, Project Coordinator, Danish Oil Services Company.

"When David told me his PHC service makes projects finish early I asked why (the heck) anyone would want that! If he were training on how to make the project extend it would be more useful!"

Anonymous Kazakh Production Engineer, Italian multinational Oil Company.

[The final inspiration, I think, for the publishing of this book]

And Who Made Me The Drama Queen?

Something my girls used to say when they were young, to someone getting on a high horse, delivering their rant and making their emotional stand. It’s a gentle put down and a rebuke, but done in ever such a nice way.

So who made me the drama queen? Or maybe more like 'The King of Destruction of Projects' ... well the whole damned industry did, over many a long year. I demand my feeling of industry resentment and I have every right to wallow in my misery myre. Here's why.

Long story. Short version: I nearly went to the wall. Nearly lost it all, house car, shirt, you name it. Strangely enough though, not wife! She stuck with me through all of it and it doesn't seem she’s about to leave any time soon either. She believes in me and in what I am trying to do. Always has done, and for her support, encouragement and sacrifice. Also the occasional lovely warm cuddle, I am truly and eternally grateful. Now that things are looking up and money is flowing again, I am certain once more that she can share in a good life with champagne, world cruises, food, shoes etc.

So what happened really?

Well in trying to promote what has become something of an obsession for me, in getting to the market a service called Project Health Control (PHC) I took a small team along a long dark tunnel in which the light that I saw at the end was only the reflection of our enthusiasm in the distance (Martin, Clare, some part time associates and me). Nothing to do with the reality of being close to a sale. Ah that old man Mr Retrospect.

Oh, but we did get close, or so it really did seem. We approached over the course of a 16 month campaign, a total of 1,458 people from 622 Oil and Gas Operators. We nurtured the list to a final base of 432 active contacts from 321 companies. In our final hit list we had 36 companies that were warm prospects who had shown an active interest in PHC. From that batch, 4 companies were hot prospects with whom we had significant dialogue and 2 of them reached the proposal stage.

Petrotrin, after a comprehensive feasibility study; four weeks of free work in setting up their PHC system gave us all (us and them) a real insight into how we could directly influence the course of the project. But when the time came for them to make a commitment, they declined (I think I now know the real reason why!).

Saudi Aramco, was an excellent prospect and I thank Mr Asir for his valuable feedback and challenging questions, but we didn't pursue. The coffers were well and truly empty by then and so was the will to continue after the rejection by Petrotrin. That was a real body blow, but at the same time a useful insight into the precedence that local economies take over project economies.

After we suspended our marketing activity on the PHC service, Martin and I went our separate ways and both eventually landed 'proper jobs' with real companies! In my case a major Oil Company took my services as a ‘Risk Management and Project Controls Engineer’. An excellent opportunity to build it up again.

Groans from Clare but 'still' supporting me with that unconditional love that I think is sometimes needed in these things.

At the summer of 2011, at the time of writing this, it’s been six months into a year's contract and I'm full of beans again. But with a fresh set of ideas and an experience that I've never had before, at the very top of an international organisation, looking down on well over 200 projects worldwide and tremendous scope for application of PHC.

But the world is not so simple as to allow something so obvious as the application of a cost saving system to a needy portfolio, even from within the organisation.