A few years ago I used to work for company that at the time was in rapid expansion. I still remember the day when I had my interview for the job, I was conducted to a conference room that had an amazing view over the Old Port of Montreal, the office being on the 28th floor, you were treated with an amazing panorama.
The conference room had a table for eight people and soon after I was hired, the management decided to order a longer table. They went with a company that custom builds high quality office furniture.
We were soon visited by an employee of the furniture company who took all the measurements of the conference, talked to the administration to learn all the requirements, and he was diligently taking notes and drawing up sketches.
In a couple of weeks, the furniture company delivered our brand new, custom built, $10.000 value conference table. Only after arriving downstairs, they realized that the top part of the table that was built in one piece and it would not fit in the elevator.
They had to cut it in two and come up with new solutions for assembling it. No need to say the value of the table has dropped significantly at the door of the elevator.
How many projects go wrong, because project managers focus too much on the requirements and they ignore the limitations of delivering it? How many projects go longer and create more loss than profit for a company, because overlooking a small detail, that can prove to be fatal?
