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Most people, at sometime during their professional career will be presented with the responsibility of the dreaded "COMPANY PROJECT." This can be something as simple as purchasing office supplies or corrdinating a major move of 1400 people from one floor of your office building to the other. In any event there will be at the least three characteristics involved. You may have been involved with these characteristics at one time or another, but alas, not in the areas of their necessity or your expertise.

Projects involve doing something that is tipically not done often, perhaps they may even be a first, all of which is therefore unique. A product or service may be unique even if the catagory to which it belongs is large. For example, many thousands of office buildings have been developed, but each individual facility is unique - different owner, different location, different contractors, and so on. The presence of repetitive elements does not change the fundamental uniqueness of the work.

The projects of which I speak of are primarily in the areas of the voice and data infrastructure, along with diaster recovery plans, future growth in design and construction and of course, the maintainence arena. Most companies pick their best people to handle these "MINOR or ONE-TIME PROJECTS". The over simplication of these projects is usually the first mistake that takes place. From that point on, all others have a tendency to view these projects the same way.

Cubicle furniture comes to mind when ever I recall nightmarish situations. This is a prime example of extreme miscommunication, under estimation of scope, as well as many different groups of individuals and subcontractors all dabbling in areas where they must leave their areas of expertise and inevitably begin to sacrifice codes and safety regulations of which they are unaware as well as project quality.

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