Broken Projects 4

[Moooney]

What do you do when you hear of projects that can be disproven as being profitable on the back of a napkin or in the least a big hairy mess that we would be lucky to break even on and the group is aggressive towards feedback?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Stay, feed back the company line, spend their money like water, and enjoy your paycheck.
OR
Give them honest feedback.
You might as well include it with your resignation letter, which itself should be very short.
Delay sending both until you have secured another job.
OR
Stay, give them honest feedback as politely as possible, bite your tongue instead of saying 'I told you so', keep following orders as well as you can, and wait for them to discharge you as part of the inevitable implosion. I myself have tried to follow this course on too many occasions, and I can't say it's been good for my career or my wallet.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Sparweb]

You post all the embarrassing details on Eng-tips, of course!

Seriously, if your concern is purely economic, and it doesn't trigger the ethics guidelines of the professional organization you belong to, then break out the napkins.

At some point, you risk making a "career-limiting move". Figure out where the line is before approaching it. It all depends on where you stand with respect to the proponents, opponents, and the purse-string holders.

STF

 

[epoisses_]

To a certain extent you have to respect your company's decision-making process. You need to join the battle when the battle is held. 6 months after Waterloo you can't just summon the soldiers back into the fields and tell them no that's not the way it should have ended, do it all over again. Yes you can expect some aggressivity to feedback in that case.

If you think the project assumptions are wrong, challenge them timely.

If the whole decision-making process is faulty or too rudimentary, it may not be your job to change it if you're not on management level, but if you give the example on your own projects, that may inspire the organisation and they may eventually develop the reflex of asking "where's the justification" when the next economically doubtful idea comes by. Wasn't it the Dalai Lama who said something like, if you want to change the world start at your doorstep?

 

[GregLocock]

To be honest that's the automotive business. Each model would be hard to justify, except once in a while you build something that sells like hot cakes, and that funds the next round of hopeful products.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[moltenmetal]

There's a difference between the OP's situation and a new car model Greg, I think. A new car model is like a conventional oil well: you use the best models and data you can to pick the right place to drill, but only a few of them pay out like gangbusters.

No, I suspect that the situation the OP is talking about is, to use an example from my industry, an idea for a new chemical process to make C starting with A and B, where the cost of railcar quantities of A and B is higher than the market price of railcar quantities of pure C. A project which is dead before it's born- one which even the remotest bit of analytical thought would have killed before the mouth was opened to suggest it, but regrettably that thought never happened.

Unfortunately some of us can't help but notice when the emperor's new clothes are a little skimpy. Worse still, we can't help but point this out, or at least to be unable to shrug and smile and admire what isn't there- or pretend that we don't see what is there.

This fact makes me the wrong guy for the job on many projects. It also makes me the right guy for the job for some clients, and those people ask for me my name. There are enough of the latter people to keep me in my job, or at least there have been so far.

I've had delighted clients whose projects never made a gram of product- an exciting idea proved unworthy of investment for reasons not apparent at the outset, despite thorough work at every step. I've also seen projects which were considered successful by their proponents despite not being a commercial or technical success, because they attracted sufficient funding and built a base of IP etc. to draw on. So it is very easy to conclude too early that something isn't worth doing at all without realizing that your idea of "worth doing" may differ from that of your client or employer. I have to be careful to remember this, but I can't refrain from asking the tough questions- it's in my nature.

I've been with my employer for a couple decades, and I own a piece of the company. Whenever my money is about to be spent on what I consider to be a boondoggle, you can hear my opinion from across the building. Doesn't mean there aren't boondoggles that escape my notice (many are considered above my pay grade, for which I'm supposed to be thankful and probably should be).

 

[drawoh]

Moooney,

What is your level of authority in all this? What sort of office politics are going on at your company? There are people out there who have no problems with polite, professional feedback.

--
JHG

 

[TheTick]

Interesting... It's not that the project is physically impossible, but just unprofitable.

I've shot down numerous projects with basic physics or mechanics. Some were just wounded and I got to ride the tailspin all the way to the ground. Proving profitability/unprofitability seems a bit more nebulous and subject to the judgment and egos of people who don't like to be told "no".

As a musician, I have a rule for myself when I play in a band: you won't know if I hate a song by the way I play it. Every song gets my best. The song will suck on its own lack of merit. It doesn't need me to make it suck more.

Likewise with engineering projects: bad projects will fail in spite of my best effort, not because of it. They will fail on their own merit.

 

[Terratek]

I'd probably mind my own business.

 

[MintJulep]

Depending on the business and business climate profit isn't always the goal.

There is the "foot in the door" idea.

There is the possibility that the big hairy mess that might break-even will keep everyone employed, or even keep the doors open for a while. With the longer term hope of getting more and more profitable work.

There are "marquee" projects where being able to say "we did this" is more valuable than profit.

Or of course there are just bad management decisions.

 

[SandCounter]

I've asked before, "help me understand the economics here." It leaves the door open for someone to reason through why these decisions are being made and shows a proactive interest in the big picture.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[CWB1]

I would say that more info is needed to provide reasonable feedback on this. Generally however I tend to get myself into trouble when attempting to do others' jobs for them, particularly those outside my expertise so I usually hope for the best, trust their judgement, and keep my mouth shut. I've worked on a few "successful failures" like MintJulep describes above, where a loss is accepted up front for strategic reasons. I also worked in future technology development, where project goals werent sales or products but rather to develop a functional technology while identifying its production & profit limitations for use in 5-15 years when those limitations might not exist anymore. At one former employer projects that were projected to have ~<40% margin were commonly viewed as failures and/or cut. When a product manager suggested one of mine be cut due to only 30% projected margin I questioned how mine could be compared to another with ~60% "margin" when the previous two generations of that other product were ~300% into the red due to recalls.

 

[epoisses_]

IMHO it is typical of a micro-managed company with more chiefs than indians, to have a list of project ideas dreamed up during those infamous marathon meetings, which nobody takes the time to do some math on. If by accident a development team takes hold of one of these, thinking they have management blessing to move forward, you'd be surprised how much energy can be spent before someone asks the question why the heck are we doing this. I hate to say this but I have seen this happening in my own company. Faulty decision-making.

In my previous company I used to be responsible for improvement projects on part of the plant and when I got that job I inherited 63 (sixty-three) ideas. Spent 6 months and 63 napkins and then it turned out 1 idea devastated all others in terms of profitability over cost. So, all hands on deck while I put the other 62 on hold, and once done the plant made money like it's not allowed. It feels great to be empowered

 

[SandCounter]

Actually, now that I think about it, we have a whole system in place to handle "bright ideas" in the form of configuration management. There is an individual that is assigned to spending about half his time managing the process. Ideas come in formally with filled-out forms complete with details of what needs to be accomplished, how much it will cost, and how long it will take. The forms are collected and prioritized where they are presented in a monthly meeting of a committee with representatives from each department strictly limited to 1-1/2 hr where about 10 to 20 items are objectively reviewed. Some are rejected, some are put on hold until economically viable, others are recommended for approval and implementation. Rarely are the requests from actual committee members, though it can happen. But, because of their experience on the committee, they understand they must have had done their homework to get it through.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[epoisses_]

That is how it is supposed to work, at least where I come from.