Lessons From Experience: Fools Gold

Lessons From Experience: Fools Gold

The story that you are about to read is from actual events that occurred in
the field. Its purpose is to provide you with a real-world example from a
seasoned professional in the business world.
Fools Gold
I served as a project associate for a technology consulting firm based in New
York. During my first project management assignment, I made what could
have been a career-ending mistake. While working on the project budget, I
assessed all of the organization’s internal resources, also known as an
organizational process asset evaluation. I was trying to figure out what types
of resources exist in the company that I could use in the project, which
meant savings to my procurement budget.
I identified office materials that I needed, the software to support my work
packages, and other technology equipment that I would eventually require. I
created a list of internal resources and reflected them as savings in my
budget breakdown. From there, I identified all of the materials and services
that I would need to procure outside of the company and the associated cost
breakdown. The project manager was very happy with my findings and cost
savings to his budget.
During the first phase of the project, I quickly realized I my mistake. Several
of the important materials and technology equipment that I had listed as
internal organizational process assets were no longer available. Many of the
resources I had listed were already allocated to other projects in the
company. I did not follow proper procurement procedure and protocol, which
would have alerted me that these resources were already cleared for other
projects. I did not have enough money in my budget to purchase these
resources because I had listed it as cost savings that did not require any
procurement. The project manager had to step in and negotiate for these
resources to get reallocated to our project and free up our contingency
budget (emergency fund) to cover the cost of the additional resources we
needed. Although I was lucky to keep my job, my contract did not get
renewed once the project was complete.
It is important to take away the following from this scenario:
 Fully understand your company’s internal processes, protocols, and
Lessons From Experience: Fool’s Gold
2
procedures.
 Do not assume that internal resources and materials will be available
without asking.

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