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2 teams met inside a mountain and changed the world
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I’m in Singapore today and this is amazing. The level in its infrastructure is worth studying. However, as a good engineer, I love comparing. Come to me to Greece. More than 2,400 years ago, the ancient Greeks decided to build a tunnel through a mountain on the island of Samos. One kilometre long to bring water from one point to the other. Not much for these days… although they did not use the billion dollars as measurement unit… Now add. A tunnel through solid rock. The engineer was called Eupalinos. And he had an innovative idea. Start digging from both ends. Simultaneously. And meet somewhere in the middle. Yes, yes… today is easy. But then… No GPS. No lasers. No computers. No BIM. Just mathematics, surveying instruments and a considerable amount of confidence. And they met… Inside the mountain. Perfect integration of teams. The tunnel supplied water for more than a thousand years. Herodotus was so impressed that he wrote about it. Romans copied later. Now, consider today’s achievement. London, for example. Crossrail. One of Europe's most sophisticated railway projects. Modern engineering. Extraordinary technology. Engineers and consultants in numbers larger than the army of half the countries in the world. Billions of dollars… of course… well, here billions of pounds. And three different signalling systems that needed to work together… They didn’t. Unfortunately, making them communicate proved rather complicated. Delay of three and a half years. With costs approximately 28% above its budget. This is today’s world. Everyone reports progress. Everyone meets their contractual obligations. And somehow, the project doesn't work. So we appoint an Integration Manager. Then an Integration Committee. Then an Independent Integration Advisor. And perhaps even a Relationship Consultant. Eupalinos understood something fundamental. When two teams are working towards the same objective, they need to know exactly where they're supposed to meet. Keep that sentence for your next meeting. Otherwise, you don't have a project. For more insights about integration, you know where to click.
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Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
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