“How could you work differently?” I asked. “How could you work differently, and be more in control?”

“I am working as hard as I can, what more can I do?” Curtis resigned.

“I am not asking you to do more. I am asking, what can you do different?”

Curtis’ head moved back and forth. “It’s a complicated project. I can’t just turn it over to my team. This is way over their head.”

“I know, the Time Span of the project is appropriate for your role, AND it contains several hundred hours of work. So many hours, you cannot possibly, single-handedly perform each step.”

“I know, I know,” Curtis nodded in agreement. “There are four distinct phases to the project and we haven’t finished the first one, already behind schedule.”

“The Time Span of the entire project is appropriate for your role. What is the Time Span of each of the four phases?”

I could see the light emerging in Curtis’ eyes. “I think I see it now. As long as I am performing every step, I can only work through step by step. But, there are lots of things that can be done out of sequence. If I break things out, maybe I can get some help.”

“And what if you broke the entire project out, so you, personally, self-perform nothing?”