LITMIR.BIZ

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goods stores. This means our products have to be ready for sale well before the final customer wants to buy them. Distribution time is a reality that has to be factored into all of our production schedules. To get the WindSailor out to the public for, say, the last part of next summer, we would have to have it ready for sale by June. This would allow adequate time to get it out to retailers.

      The First Cost Estimate

      Stu interrupted my little reverie. “As you might expect,” he said, “The Hyler board of directors, in all their wisdom, have already decided how much this project will cost.” I hated these pronouncements. We had only a rough idea of what work was needed, and the directors were already telling us what we would be spending, regardless of anything we might discover to the contrary. Based on my experience, I expected we would discover to the contrary. Then there would be hell to pay, even though the board must have pulled the cost estimate out of thin air.

      “We have $1 million to spend, not including new equipment costs. Think you can do it for that?”

      “Stu,” I began, “how am I supposed to answer that question? I just found out about the project 20 minutes ago.”

      “Good,” said Stu, ignoring my protest, “I’ll tell Ralph that you can. I wouldn’t want to disappoint him.”

      “Hold on a minute,” I said, getting my courage up. “One million may be the board’s figure, but I refuse to be caught out on this project like every other one. As soon as I know differently, Ralph is going to have to approve a new budget.”

      Stu looked at me as if there was a whole world of pain out there that I didn’t understand. “Sure, sure,” he said. “Whatever it takes. Just make sure you pass it through me before you go talking to Ralph.” He sighed. “You may want to keep yourself pure and clean and out of the office politics, but one of us has to keep an eye on it. In fact, I think you’d better look at me as your political advisor on this one, as well as your sponsor.”

      That seemed fair enough since his neck was out even more than mine.

      “Well,” I said, standing up, “I better get going on this thing.” I had a last minute thought, “Who will I be coordinating with on the Human Resources end of things?”

      Stu just looked at me and didn’t say anything.

      I prompted him. “You know, with all the new machines, we’ll have to hire and train a bunch of people.” Stu still didn’t say anything and kept on looking at me. I started to get it. “Aw, Stu, “I sounded like a little kid whose bedtime had come half-way into his favorite TV show. “There’s a hell of a lot of work here. I don’t even know what I’m doing on the manufacturing side!”

      Stu finally spoke. “I’m not going to break this into a million little pieces and hope that everything will get done. The whole thing is part of the same big project, and I want it run that way.” I must have looked depressed because he added, “You won’t be all on your own, you know. With my help you can pull team members from every department, and they’ll be doing most of the work in their areas. But I want you coordinating the whole thing.”

      Resigned, I asked, “For the new systems as well?”

      “The whole thing,” Stu said. “Except for the marketing campaign and the actual roll-out, which Marketing will handle. I want you to coordinate it all.”

      Gathering Courage

      With those words ringing in my ears, I took my leave and headed back to my office. The more I thought about the whole thing, the more unhappy I was. Not only was this project important for the company, Stu’s hopes of promotion were riding on it too. It wasn’t that I minded pressure, it was just that projects always seemed to turn out poorly, or with mixed results at best. Hard as I had tried, I had never figured out a way to improve the result.

      If my budget was $1 million, Marketing would probably have nearly that amount too. Recreational products are very marketing intensive. Two million dollars was a lot of money for Hyler to invest, and that didn’t take into account the increase in operating expenses that would result from this product. Head office would never let Hyler go under, but it would let people’s careers get into serious trouble. If things didn’t go well, not only would Stu not be getting his promotion, but I would probably want to dust off my resume. All of this hanging on a project. I felt something funny happening in my stomach.

      My loyal department staff were not much help, either for my stomach or my lack of knowledge about projects.

      “Better dust off the old resume,” said Amanda Payton after I told her about my meeting with Stu. Amanda is my second in command in Information Systems, and one of my favorite people at Hyler.

      “It sounds like one of those projects that can really go down in flames!” She smiled encouragingly. To reduce her smugness to a more bearable level, I said, “Yes, no question it will be a challenge. But thank God I have you around to help! The project is going to take up a lot of my time over the next ten months, so I’ll be needing you to take over my responsibilities on a regular basis. Of course, we won’t be getting any extra people to help us here in IS, so you will still have your own stuff to look after.” I paused, and then because it didn’t sound like enough I added, “And I think I’ll be needing your expertise on the project “team” as well. Looks like we’ll be spending a few late nights together.” I gave her my best “team” smile.

      Her smugness transformed into minor depression and I felt a little better. When I told her Ralph had assigned Al Burton to the team, Amanda was not impressed. “Al is going to be a major burden. He does everything by the book. And half the time he has the wrong book!”

      I wished that everyone else’s opinion of Al was not quite as dismal as mine.

      “When are you getting started?” Amanda asked.

      I looked at my watch. “I want to schedule the first team meeting for tomorrow morning at 10. Want to come along?”

      “I wouldn’t miss it,” she said, although I got the feeling she was only interested in the entertainment the meeting would surely provide. I would definitely have to find a lot of work for her to do.

      What is the Problem?

      “Why, that’s wonderful, Will!” Jenny told me. She obviously wasn’t getting the message.

      I tried telling her again. “But my future is riding on this project! And so is Stu’s. Remember him? He’s my boss. You like him!”

      Jenny is my wife. She’s a great person, and I value her opinion above just about anyone else’s. But she is not terribly sympathetic. She has crazy ideas about dealing with problems in a rational way. Tonight, for example. The whole drive home (which, admittedly, is only about ten minutes since I live on the outskirts of Darfield, the next town over from Enderby) I had been looking forward to complaining about my troubles and then listening to her appropriately sympathetic noises. As usual, she was not playing her part.

      “Look, hon,” she continued, “from everything you’ve told me, it seems like Stu made a great decision buying the rights to this product. It should be a great success!”

      My wife’s positive attitude is something I have always admired. She needs it in her job. Jenny is a freelance journalist. When we had Sarah, our first child, six years ago, Jenny and I decided to move out of the big city (then Baltimore) and live the small town life. We thought it would be better for the kids, and for us. By the time we had our son Jake three years later, I had managed to find the job with Hyler.

      Moving to the country sounds like a really trendy thing to do, but we’ve never regretted it. Unfortunately, Jenny’s career was harder hit than mine. Before the kids and the move, she had stories published in Newsweek and Time. Now, she writes mostly for local papers and magazines.

      Anyway, as a writer, Jenny has seen a lot of rejections, often for arbitrary reasons. She has this disgusting habit of shrugging them off and trying again.

      I tried once more to convince her it was hopeless. “But, Jen, I don’t know anything about construction or installing

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