i believe in the end we will get something done

One of the outcomes of last week's team meeting was being given a mandate to try and 'land' a potential project solution. We have a straw man in place (sometimes I love oil-and-gas-speak) but we now need to begin to flesh it out a bit, put something more substantial in place.

This also marks the beginning of the real negotiation process with our partners, it goes beyond our needs into and into fees and cost structures, these are always difficult conversations ( we do conversations here) to have with our potential partners. And it is the first thing that puts the solution at risk because all we tend to see is risk.

My position generally always focuses on the solution, something to this effect:

"I don’t anticipate a problem," Jane blogs said. "We’re probably going to talk again in a few days and start to get into specifics. I believe in the end we will get something done."

A positive, pro-active stance but this is not the typical position within our business which is characterised by a strong sense of neutrality and with an emphasis on all things safe.

When we sat down as a team to discuss the road ahead, the first thing that was said was, 'what is our position and are we at risk.' Risk while being a lot of things, often boils down to a state of mind, a perception of a certain reality and since we have many tools and methods to help us 'sensibly' work toward suitable mitigations, the idea of 'going for it' should be a lot easier at this junction but yet it is still unfortunately frowned upon.

One of the reasons that it is frowned upon is that people in the market place think that we have got oodles of cash, and that you can quite easily fleece us but this couldn't be further from the truth, yeah we will probably make another $23 billion worth of profit this year but our internal reality is that we 'don't have any money' or so we are constantly told. A misconception which puts the work as a whole at risk - we often then cautiously choose to - do nothing.

So how then do we get at a solution quickly, how do we get involved in something which is not perfect but could be with the right governance? It's a battle, the first battle is convincing somebody with deep pockets to sponsor the initiative (tick - done), the next more importantly is to convince the team so that you can reassure the sponsor - this includes getting to a workable fees structure (doh!).

I often speak about being dogged if you want to manage projects yet being nimble in your thinking is equally important and together these two characteristics will get you into that dogmatic Zen like state which will eventually allow you to get at the solution.

A state which always first focuses on the solution and then the risks and then only then the costs -

"I don’t anticipate a problem," Joe blogs said. "We’re probably going to talk again in a few days and start to get into specifics. I believe in the end we will get something done."

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