The Project Journey

As a consultant we try very hard to help set the right expectations of how a project may go.  The client and typically us (the consultant) have an undue optimism of trajectory of a project.  Together we typically fool ourselves into thinking the project will go as expected, so as we estimate the project we try to hard to paint a rosy picture.  That nothing could ever go wrong.  Wrong.... 

The longer I do projects the more I try to estimate the way projects typically go.  There is always going to be something that you didn't expect.  Maybe a requirement was tougher than you expected, maybe the client forgot to mention something, maybe the requirements change.  The piece you are depending on to complete a milestone in the project is late.  There are a million things are might happen.  Things never go as expected. 

As consultants we try to 'be nice' to the client, don't want to scare them, try to be their friend.  You want to be their friend, then be honest and help guide them to the end of their journey.  Most of the time its not easy, but that's our job.  So accept it and try to enjoy the journey!  I borrowed this from a friend's Facebook post. A picture says a million words.