I've Seen This Movie Before and Know the Ending

Once again, a client is heading for a project train wreck. A project that was back-burner for many months now is front and center because of significant regulatory issues (i.e. fines) that will crop up in July if this project is not implemented, or fails to deliver.

Projects based on regulatory or government-mandated edicts are strange ducks. You can't over- or under-prioritize them with respect to other projects because, for the most part, you have to do them to become or remain compliant, and stay in business. In short, they just happen, and when they hit an organization, it usually has the force of an anvil dropped off the 50th floor.

Not so this time. The issues and impact were known months ago, but management incorrectly gambled that they'd get a waiver (they've had several already), and you know, with budgets tight and all, it just didn't register on the priority scale.

Well, they bet wrong. Again. This situation is compounded by the fact that two major projects have significant (read: affects their revenue) milestones coming up in the next 60 days, and critical resources from those projects are being siphoned off to deal with the 'new' regulatory project. The PMs involved feel like transplant surgeons who have installed 3 livers into an alcoholic that keeps right on drinking. Now the patient needs a fourth liver - and will most likely keep right on partying. It gets old, fast.

Call it hindsight, but the time to have started worrying about the regulatory issues was last summer or spring, when they were known. It's too late to address these issues with 6 months to go, and it's pre-ordained that the organization will undergo significant pain because even if the regulatory project succeeds on-time, the two other revenue-based projects will not (as originally projected) because of resource shifts and adding resources will have little effect on current schedules and will drive up costs regardless.

Unfortunately, there are no PM scenarios or methodology to counteract bad managerial judgments. The PMs will 'take one for the team' for the 4th or 5th time, and it would not surprise me in the least if some of these fine folks (and key players on their teams) vote with their feet in a few months and begin drawing paychecks somewhere else.

Where they will most certainly be more appreciated than they are now.