Doing lessons learned on a project gone sour exposes the most basic lesson in project management : when communication is muddled, trouble follows!

The project that I was given to try to resusutate started out as a "partnership" and a lump sum job. Once it got rolling, the design project manager jumped right in, and immediately ran into internal difficulty staffing the project with skilled professionals skilled in collaboration as part of a geographiclly distributed team. The company had just acquired a design firm, but the technical integration of the cad groups was incomplete.

On the client side, the data that was promised on the existing conditions including "as built" drawings and program information for the new project turned out to be incomplete and fragmented. The actual data flow took six months to evolve instead of the 4 weeks promised during the bidding for the work, and both sides became defensive.

Forensic examination of the contract reveals that the bidding manual from the client and the proposal from the design firm contain contridictory statements, and both are included by reference into the contract.

The two project managers, client and design firm, never really came to grips with the differing assumptions, approaches and espectations until divergence was too great to resolve. The design firm offered to provide a project plan, but instead just jumped right in and started "fast tracking". Indeed the project plan was never given to the client.

Had the project plan been given to the client, or had the client actually read the design proposal, the job might have been saved.

Once the fast track got rolling, the defensive design PM gave notice on only two occasions that change orders were needed, when an extra review of a mechanical system was needed, and when a hazardous material situation was encountered. In both cases the PM for the client gave approval, and honored that approval to some degree.

However the design PM failed to follow the risk management steps included in the proposal. Specifically the proposal called for a design development phase that would culminate in a client sign off. The proposal stated that any change after this point would be a change order, but such sign off was not obtained.

The proposal stated that any field engineering over a certain allotment would be T&M, but when this allowance was exceeded, notice was not given nor approval to continue received.

The design PM became busy with other jobs, and his time on site deminished. The abusive PM was covering a lack of construction management that went undetected until a new PM was askled to see what went wrong.

Once the CM process was set right, the change orders deminished and the job started to run "right". Once the new PM was on the job, the client's failure to follow the contract was brought out and change orders were sought to cover the changed conditions. Unfortunately the situation was beyond fixing and the job terminated with acromony all around.

This job would have been well served if the design PM had issued a project plan and uncovered the differences in assumptions by both sides. The design PM should have notified the client of the impact that their failure to provide the as-built data and the programming information as promised had on the design effort. The design firm should have modified the plan and the contract once it became apparent that the lump sum job was being treated as a T&M job.

The uncomfortable outcome was just about inevitable once the design PM decided to avoid the uncomfortable little notifications and negotiations. I didn't start out with the assumption that both sides were acting in bad faith, and I started out with a guide who didn't disclose the problems initially. Actually, the critical failure to deliver a project plan wasn't disclosed until the week before termination, as I was drafting what I thought was to be an amendment to the project plan. Turns out my plan would have been the first, but it was stillborn.

I was new to the whole place, but once I saw the "lay of the land" my experience in project management told me that the patient was very sick.

Unfortunately it took me a long time to uncover the whole mess, and digging through the mud got me covered as well. We'll see how this unraveling evolves, but it isn't pretty!

Bruce