“What’s the name of the movie that said – What we have here is a failure to communicate?” Nolan asked.

“You are way too young to have seen Cool Hand Luke,” I replied. “So, what’s the problem?”

Nolan nodded, “We have a communication problem.”

“I don’t believe in communication problems,” I nodded back. “A breakdown in communication is only a symptom of the problem. So, again, what’s the problem?”

“The first part of every project is a demolition phase, to tear down what was already there. The crew shows up, tears things down, but there are no dumpsters to haul away the debris. The project manager says the estimator left the dumpsters off the bid package. The estimator says the project manager should have known because we have dumpsters on every project. Looks like a communication problem to me.”

“I don’t believe in communication problems and I don’t think you have one. What you have, is an accountability and authority issue. In the working relationship between your project manager and your estimator, they have a handoff meeting at the beginning of the project. That meeting is so predictable that you have a checklist to make sure that everything is covered. I would bet that somewhere on that checklist is the word dumpster.”

“You are right,” Nolan said. “But they didn’t talk about it, AND it wasn’t included in the bid package.”

“Look,” I stared at Nolan, “you have an estimator, a project manager and a checklist in a meeting. In that meeting, what is the accountability of the estimator and what is the accountability of the project manager?  It is up to you to define that.”