Project Management Tricks - I

• You go and take order from the customer
• Customer asks for 'Chicken Biryani'
• You tell the customer that the chicken biryani will come with 'something extra'!!!
• You come back to the kitchen and figure out that you do not have the ingredients for chicken biryani and no one knows what that 'something extra' means!!!
• You are confused and just then you notice a new chef entering the kitchen
• You tell the guy that now he has to cook chicken biryani with the ingredients available
• The guy looks at the ingredients and says that it will not be possible; he questions the thought process and says that 'we' should not have promised chicken biryani and we should have clearly defined that 'something extra'
• You agree with the new chef but promise him that you and your team will provide support; you tell him that he will get help from the kitchens of the other restaurants in the chain and you ask the new guy to 'lower' the client expectations!!!
• The new guy gets on with his task but notices that there is no support and some of the other kitchens in the restaurant chain and masters of screw up (and you acknowledge that)!!! 
• Moreover, the waiter is a little cranky about something. The waiter is friendly with the client but does not care about the 'team' that is supposed to cook the dish!!! The new guy asks for some support from the waiter and the waiter chews his ass off!!!
• The new chef comes to you and tells you that we need to change the approach. You do not agree. Then another manager, who is at par with you in the restaurant, suggests that the approach be changed. Then you agree. But you have wasted some time in making that decision
• You ask the new guy to confirm with the client that they want chicken biryani with chicken in it!!! 
• The customer is taken aback, recovers his composure in a while and confirms that he wants chicken biryani with chicken in it!!!
• All this is taking a while. The new guy is getting anxious and so are you. So you call the new guy and ask him why there is a delay. The new guy tells you that it is a clear case of over-promising (that happened before he joined the kitchen), which now requires a different approach and hence, there 'has to be' a delay in order to ensure that we move towards the corrective measures. He also asks that why is he being asked for the delay when everyone clearly knows how things are. 
• You agree but keep tell him that he needs to move quicker and lot of time has 'unnecessarily' been wasted
• The new guy is clueless about the state of affairs but comes up with a dish, which of course is not chicken biryani but is decent and can make the customer think that he is having something 'close' to chicken biryani
• You step in and ask the new guy to change the look of the dish so that the customer is 'clear' that he is not getting chicken biryani!!
• Ultimately, now what is on the plate is a dish that is not chicken biryani and is not something which is very appealing as well
• On top of that, you ask the new chef to shout it out that 'this is not chicken biryani', we need more time to cook chicken biryani but it is because the customer took time to confirm that they want chicken biryani with chicken in it!!! 
• All this while, you are also wondering whether you all can actually serve chicken biryani or not!!!
• Ultimately, you make the new guy go to the client, tell them that they were wrong in expecting chicken biryani, tell them that we may serve chicken biryani if we get more time but that will be on a 'best effort'  basis!!! The customer may or may not get chicken biryani in the end!!!
• Now that is what 'You' call client expectation management!!! Interestingly, some others in the trade call it lack of planning and management. The new chef has a right to term all this as 'ragging', lack of management', 'lack of processes' and 'lack of proper work environment'.
• Ultimately you may have a pissed off client but NOW, you have someone to blame.......... ahaaan!!! Ssssssssssmaaaart!!!