The authors, Roberto (Dutch) and James (American) are sensible provocateurs, “bons amis” with a weakness for boarding passes and outcomes over alibis. Between us, we’ve hauled complex undertakings from conception to completion, sometimes as insiders, sometimes as hired heretics, for more than fifteen companies across six continents (Antarctica, alas, has yet to issue an RFP).
The Dutch, it is often said, share with their island neighbors a fondness for the sea and a humor as black as North Sea winter. Where they part company is in the national allergy to genteel evasions. Politeness, if it hinders progress, is treated as a vice. One admires this: the elephant in the room is not given biscuits and a name tag; it is shown the door
The Problem
Even in this candid culture, a glaring corporate embarrassment persists in full view: the routinized failure of projects.
The figures (grim, repeated, and somehow forgiven) have become a grim arithmetic:
- A large majority misfires.
- The waste runs to tens of billions each year.
This ought to chill the marrow. Projects are not exotic creatures; they are the everyday machinery of our lives, from the buggy app that squats on your phone to the headline fiascos that accompany mega-events like the Olympics.
How We’ll Tackle It
After years of arguing in offices, on airplanes, and in bars (the latter, alas, being the most sincere venue), we concluded that improvement begins by arming everyone involved in projects (not merely the credentialed priesthood) with the unspoken truths.
We will drag into daylight:
- The pink elephants.
- The hidden landmines.
- The sinkholes disguised as shortcuts.
- The occasional windbag who mistakes volume for leadership.
For Whom
This blog is for anyone in an organization who touches projects: sponsors, PMs, engineers, designers, finance, ops, legal, compliance, sales and all else who live with the outcomes. If you need clarity and traction now, you’re in the right place.
It is particularly relevant to organizations with repeated project failures where senior stakeholders and advisory firms have not identified effective remedies.
Style and Restraint
What, exactly, is failing and why? We say it clearly. We combine data and lived practice, use wit and sarcasm when they help, and ignore the rituals of management jargon. We write not to shock but to end complacency. We keep it lean: no academic showpieces, just insight you can apply.
Very well, then. Let the armchair revolution begin.