Don't just think of the first life-cycleWhat's the lesson learned in all of this? We learn that all of these things that we're experiencing as project managers are not new lessons. (The punishment for failure now may be termination, but in the 1500s and 1600s, that had a completely different set of implications.) When we become frustrated with our management or customers and their propensity for change or their shifting perceptions on the projects, we should seriously consider that such changes in approach and attitude are nothing new. They have been around since truly ancient times and they are often the forefathers of opportunity, rather than pain and grief. The ancient builders of Stonehenge had no idea they'd be making life much easier for English farmers millennia hence. The builders of the Tower castle "loo" (restroom) in 1066 certainly couldn't have predicted the giggles they would evoke from children nearly a thousand years later.
A significant chunk of England is built on someone else's efforts. Stonehenge is now considered a natural treasure. Several hundred years ago, however, local farmers thought it a downright convenient collection of stones to help build their farmhouses. The joints in the stones and their construction made them ideal targets for "re-use." As we build our projects, we may seriously wish to consider how others may look at them five and ten years down the road. That kind of future thinking can set the stage for a long-term respect for the longevity of that which we craft.
Your project is big, but someone else's may still be more important
The etymology of the phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul" may actually have its roots in project management. In 1540, St. Peters in Westminster was upgraded from abbey church to cathedral. But when it was joined to the London diocese just ten years later (ah, the joys of new management), many of its funds were appropriated for repairs on Saint Paul's.
No matter how well you plan it, someone will misuse it�eventually
The stone circle of Avebury stretches a quarter of a mile across, and is a marvel of ancient engineering. The stones weigh in excess of 40 tons each and were put in place before Stonehenge was completed. In the excavation of the site, a discovery was made that was incongruous with other findings. It seems that while the stones were placed in ancient times, during England's medieval period, some poor fellow was playing on one of them, and it teetered over and crushed him like a grape. There are limits to how much you can "dummy-proof" any system.
There's always one more way to fix it
As we walked through the Tower of London, the Beefeaters explained how the Roman walls became the Tower walls and how the Tower complex became the castle and how the Traitor's Gate became the access way and how the area over the Gate became a chapel and so on and so on� In any project management effort, ours is not the last word. We learn new things. We see new possibilities. It's not always scope creep. In many instances, it's a function of opportunity rearing its lovely head.
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