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Dig Dug
I was reviewing resumes a couple years ago for a client that wanted to hire project managers. On one of them, the guy said he had worked on the "Big Dig" up in Boston. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! If there's a better example of program management screw-ups, I haven't seen it yet.
Back in 2000 it was billions over budget, and they were only getting warmed up. In 2003 they hired a retired judge to figure out what was going on.
How can you be billions and billions over budget and still have a job? That's a question Boston residents should ask themselves when they go to the poll.
It's easy to throw rocks, and I've also been on government jobs that spent money like they were burning it for warmth, but the answers are probably very complex. Just guessing, I'd say nobody had responsibility and decision-making ability at the same time, leading to one group being responsible while another group controlled the purse. Add in some micro-management, incompetence, never-did-this-before, and its-not-my-job, and you got a mess. A mess that we all have to pay for.
There should be some lessons here. The first, in my book, would be not to put the "Big Dig" on your resume.
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