When I was a junior project manager trying to discuss with a senior construction manager where to put some fiber optics for a toll system, he told me a story…

In a large tunnel project, they had spent weeks arguing about where to put a temporary installation.

Not fiber optics… but almost.

Design said one thing.

Construction said another.

The client wanted the classic miracle:

“No impact on cost. No impact on programme. No impact on risk.”

Of course.

And I want to eat croissants every morning and look like Cristiano Ronaldo.

After two hours, the meeting was dead.

Twenty people.

Designers, constructors, even a lawyer… the UN…

Three drawings.

Four planners questioning their life choices.

Two lawyers pretending they understood what a crane was.

And then, an old construction manager opened his lunch.

A bocadillo.

Not a sandwich and mierdas like that…

No.

A real bocadillo.

Round like a tunnel and abundant with real stuff on real bread.

“The tunnel is the bread. The installation is the tortilla (Spanish tortilla… by the way). The access road is the ham. And you idiots are trying to put the tortilla where the ham already is.”

I reckon that when I was told the story, things were more visual… it was during a lunch!

Anyway.

The guy talked and… then…

Silence.

The bocadillo de tortilla and ham had spoken.

Then he moved the tortilla slightly to the side.

“The crane enters here. The trucks exit there. Nobody blocks the excavation. Problem solved.”

Was the story true?

No idea.

But we could pass that fiber optics afterwards…

Anyway, stories like this happens every week in large construction projects.

Maybe without the bocadillo.

But definitely with the same confusion.

Too many meetings.

Too many reports.

Too many people “aligning stakeholders” while quietly killing the project.

And not enough people who can look at the mess and say:

“This is where the project dies.”

That is why experience matters.

Real experience.

Mud-on-the-boots experience.

Tortilla-on-the-drawing experience.

In the Room we talk about the real stuff in projects.

The tortilla.

The ham.

The bread… el pan bueno de verdad!

You know where to click… this is the last day to get that audio about governance vs results… 23:59 NZ time.

​The Room​

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