“It’s like they fight all the time,” Sheldon explained. “Each manager thinks they know how to run the whole company, if I would just step out of the way.”

“What’s happening, explain the friction?” I asked.

“Once again, the project was late and when it was delivered to the client, it didn’t work. Pretty simple explanation. It’s the fix that’s complicated. When we only did one project at a time, everything seemed to work well. On time, on budget, never missed a beat. Then we got two projects, three. We now have seven projects in-house and they all have problems, missed deadlines, cost overruns and quality issues.”

“And?”

“The project manager is ripping his hair out. The response he is getting from all the other managers is a mix of blame and excuses,” Sheldon shrugged.

“What do they say?” I prompted.

“Want a list?” Sheldon chuckled.

• The Sales Manager says he asked Engineering for timetable before he promised a delivery date.
• The Engineering Manager says there were too many changes in the scope of work.
• The Ops Manager says the timetable from Engineering was unrealistic.
• The Accounting Manager says the budget didn’t allow for any profit.
• The Marketing Manager says that if he had known the priority of the client, he would have put more people into the product rollout.

“So, who is right?” I smiled.

“That’s the problem. They are all right. Every word is true.”