Simmer Down!: How to Deliver Great Projects Despite Impossible Deadlines and Unrealistic Budgets

Unrealistic? Perhaps. Impossible? Probably not. Either way, that's all you're getting. What's a project manager to do?

One of the most frequent complaints among project managers is that best practices such as PMBoK and PRINCE say you should work out what a project is about first, then estimate the work needed to do it, then determine the likely cost and schedule. 

In reality, it often happens that after project managers are nominated to their roles, they’re told what the deadline is and how much money is available, and that's the end of that. Many PMs go through the best practice processes they learned, then discover that they simply can't get there from here. And that there simply isn't any way to deliver what's required in the allotted time and budget. 

But their program managers or executives won't budge an inch. The budget is formulated, the shareholder or stakeholder promises have been made. “Suck it up. Do more with less. We hired a great PM like you to make things happen and get it done .” We've heard it all before. No wonder project failure rates are what they are. 

Is there no end to the madness?

Well, yes, there is. 

Simmer Down! explains what a project manager can do when faced with such a situation so they can satisfy both the customer and the constraints. It's also going to be useful to help program managers explain to the project managers that sometimes the world doesn’t revolve around them. 

Let's face it: there can only be one priority A-1 project. Everything else has to revolve around that fact. Managing that thought process is the way to make sense out of all the impossible contradictions.

Simmer Down! explains how a project gets on the board in the first place. It provides many tips on how a project manager can influence the action during the early stages, the planning stages, and even after work begins to obtain and maintain the most reasonable possible expectations for cost, schedule and scope.

Dr. Douglas Brown shares the lessons of over 20 years of experience in project and program planning and execution in both commercial and government settings. In all that time, more money up front has seldom been an option. So a better understanding of what the stakeholders can get for the money they do have is the way to go.