The implementation of a project can be best explained by example. Building a new house for Fido is a project that may be mandated by a higher authority – like the wife. The stages in development are very similar to mining projects. You start with a sketch that defines a multi-storied, loft-style home with an extra bedroom for Fido’s guests when they sleep over. This is called the design basis memorandum (DBM) and is done in consultation with everyone in the family - none of whom know anything about construction or materials costs. The next step is to get a preliminary cost estimate. Your growing sense of unease during the costing phase is confirmed when the construction bill comes in at $20,000. This sends you back to cut out the “nice-to-haves” concentrating on the “need-to-haves”. This process is very boring and everyone is fed up with the fighting so you are soon left alone to do this. The design comes down to four walls, a double sloped roof and a hole cut in one end wall with a very stylish faux gunny sack cloth door – which is removed from the design when Fido breaks wind in your bedroom the next morning. This raises two universal rules about projects. The first is that the cheapest design is the one that copies the neighbour’s dog house and the second is that you should be nice to the designer during the feasibility phase or he may design all kinds of horror into your life. Think of the guy who designed the sewer pipe at forehead level across the stairs in Tim the Toolman’s basement. You get the drift.

When the dog house has been designed and the cost does not require a second mortgage on the house we can say that the engineering phase is complete. There is a design on paper, a list of materials and a target cost estimate. As stated before, the target cost estimate must be at least ten percent higher than you think it should be to allow for overage on the beer. The next phase is project construction. At this point you mobilize the crew and put together the tools required. If you are lucky your basement will be undeveloped and you can build the dog house in a modular form out of the wind and weather. Worst case is you have to build it in the snow in the backyard while Fido watches you out the patio doors. Sometimes projects come to an untimely end at this point because Fido gets killed unexpectedly. Then you are left with the sale of salvage materials and a sunk cost which is written off to experience. 

When the dog house is complete then the construction phase is ended and the start-up and commissioning phase begins. Everyone is on tenderhooks at this point wondering how Fido will take to his new home because... did anyone think to ask Fido if he wanted his own home? When he is finally coaxed into the house by way of a juicy steak which was not included in the cost estimate (and comes out of the beer allowance) the inevitable happens. Fido gets stuck halfway through the door. At this point we introduce a concept called “re-work”. Just as renovating a house is at least twice as expensive as building a new house, re-work on a project is very expensive. How to remove Fido? He can be starved until he slims down but this is nixed by the kids. He can be killed and simply dragged through the opening but this would lead to criminal charges. You can pull the roof off and push on him from the inside or you can try to cut around him to make a larger opening leaving him with a rind of wood around his middle that forever scratches the walls in the house. The options are never pleasant and this brings us to a third rule in project development. Re-work is a result of insufficient engineering.

The penultimate phase of the project is operations. This is when Fido has learned to come to terms with his new home having peed in all four corners and is able to enter and exit at will without leaving large tufts of hair on the doorframe. Of course the home is a little shakier than hoped for because the roof has been taken off so many times that the nails no longer hold like they should and the door opening is less than symmetrical. But it can be lived with. Normally everyone is so relieved to get the job done that Fido’s home never knows a coat of paint. Many, many projects end up this way. “To hell with it! It works well enough and there is no more money anyway! We’ll fix it up as we operate.” – which, of course, never happens.

At the risk of being boringly repetitive, if you learn just one thing let it be this, Engineering is the cheapest insurance there is for project success. Re-work done on paper costs nothing compared to re-work done in the field. So let’s look a bit more into the engineering phase.