Brian was sweating as he faced Colin and me from across the desk. It wasn’t from the Queensland heat. “They’ve already started” he said. “Who’s already started?” I asked. “The consultants are here. They’ve already started letting go of people.” “You guys were supposed to start
“The cost estimates are baseless,” the engineer said, his voice low, controlled. This was an engineering program. The numbers should have been grounded in something—benchmarks, prior builds, real installations. “They’re not,” he said. “Look at the totals.” I did. “They’ve been made to fit the budget. Not
2am. The phone rang again. It was Eunice. She never called at that hour. “It’s Ron. I think it’s a heart attack. I can’t get through to the ambulance. Can you come?” The front door was already open when Maryam stepped inside. Ron was sprawled on the
Corporate HR was in place. Key staff recruited and trained. IT systems live. Legals all in place. Sales and marketing mobilised. Business processes documented, roles and responsibilities defined. In a small Asian country, a refinery stood ready. Product commissioning complete. Four hundred staff ready to go. A billion-dollar capital program
We sat in the K-Tec Steering Committee. Milestones on track. Issues under control. Risks—some Amber, but mitigated. Comms plan signed off. It was Green. Completely Green. And it didn’t feel right. We wanted to believe the plan. We chose not to ask the harder questions. I didn’t
I did not understand this at the time, but the Korea market entry was never a delivery challenge. It was a political process disguised as a project plan. We only discovered that when we reached the door no amount of execution could open. Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), Korea 2013 “Why are
For over a year, the same failure repeated itself at M-Corp’s Brazilian expansion. On the factory floor, Jack—the US Chief Engineer—stood in the heat as a conveyor belt carried VitoBites past him. For every handful that survived, another batch cracked open in the packaging line, their chocolate
Christmas morning, 1992. Shibalidian, south-west Beijing. The factory should have been finished months earlier. Instead, half-built walls stood in the snow, surrounded by unused materials. Mr Li assured us everything was progressing according to plan. That was the moment I realised we were not managing the same project. Another milestone
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