I thought I would do another “What If” scenario as a follow-up to the “What if…There was No Project Management?” article. This time, I’d like to consider the unlikely scenario of how a project would be run if the sky were the limit. What if there was no budget for your project – no cap on what can be spent.
First, let’s assume that it’s an important project – an external project that is very visible and means a lot to your career advancement and to your organization. Let’s assume that it’s a high-profile customer and possibly even a hard-to-please customer. So, again, what if your project had no budget? Let’s consider the scenario.
Resources
My first thought on resources for a budgetless project would be to consider acquiring one or more outsourced experts. Finding an expert to cover a critical need on a project is usually a luxury, but finding the right expert – while maybe very expensive – may trim time from the planned project schedule. It may also limit or eliminate a potential project risk that would otherwise be tracked and possibly realized by using, say, an inexperienced data specialist on a very critical data load for a highly visible project.
I had to use such a resource on the most difficult data integration effort that the company I was working with at the time had ever performed. The project ended badly due in part to the problems we experienced with the data loads. The project went way over budget and the customer ran out of money before we could successfully complete the effort. Had budget not been an issue and had we been able to put a high-priced expert on it, the chance for success would have gone up and in the long run we possibly would have actually made more money on the project by completing it and having a happy customer. Hindsight is always perfect and there’s no guarantee of that outcome, but at least the chances for success may have been increased.
Technology
Technology is another area to examine when considering a project without financial boundaries. The technical solutions we investigate for a proposed project are often dictated by what the customer has to spend or what the internal business unit customer has in their fiscal year budget. If we could remove those financial shackles and pick the solution that will best meet the organization’s needs and goals without an eye to budget and cost savings, the options would be limitless and the potential could be boundless.
I know this is almost never the case. We sometimes see it with overzealous startups that seem to have unlimited venture capital backing to get off the ground. They are trying to impress their first few decent-sized customers and may even be pushing toward an IPO situation. Inhibiting success by not going for the moon on a technology solution could be a death knell to future venture capital, a successful IPO, or retention of the few customers they’ve acquired so far. And failure for an organization this young would likely result in total failure with no ability to recover.
But what about the solid organization that has been around for years? I can personally say that I’ve never been part of an organization that would spend through the roof on any one solution with no eye toward a budget cap so I realize this will almost never happen.
However, if it could…would it be a good idea? Let’s look again and what that could mean for the project. No concerns about expense for the technology could mean that you can implement exactly the software solution that everyone wants and probably enlist the 3rd party vendor to perform any necessary customizations and configurations for you as well as install and test the final solution. The planned costs would likely be much higher than performing the work yourself. However, if it eliminates some of the risks that bring extra testing, re-work, multiple re-installations and a lot of follow-on support from the picture than the overall price could end up being the same or lower.
Summary
As Project Managers, were not likely to ever get a project without any kind of a budget. But if we did and if we managed it well and made the right choices, the final cost might not always be higher. I’m assuming a lot here and I’m assuming that the best expertise for the technology lies with its provider and not within your own organization. Proper training, etc. can be utilized to actually bring that expertise internally meaning in the long run your organization becomes more self-sufficient and can operate and support these solutions at a much lower cost.