This is an honest to God true story. I received a design from a contractor that was really good. It was creative but still in line with expectations. I sent it over to some technical people for their review. About 20 minutes later I got an email from one of them saying that it is in violation of some policy or procedure he has been putting together.
I wrote back, "Are you telling me that we are not going to allow this design because of a policy that we haven't published?"
The answer was 'Yes'. Some people are so rule-oriented that they can't see the big picture. They are so myopic that they only see the rules they have created and can't get past that. As Project Managers though, it is our responsibility to be bigger than that. We must see the big picture and take appropriate steps when a single tree is not allowing us to realize the forest.
In this particular case, I literally put my project on hold for a year to allow the technical team the opportunity to put all their stuff in order. This is a clear case of Parkinson's Law.
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