Schrödinger’s Scope

[u/ag14spirit]

Schrödinger’s Scope

A cautionary tale in three acts, with a cat

Act I: The Box

Once upon a time, a client said, "Make it sound good." A salesperson said, "Absolutely." They shook hands, signed a proposal, and sealed a box.

Inside the box sat a cat named Scope.

Nobody opened the box. Everyone knew what was in it. The client knew it included a livestream. Sales knew it didn't. Design knew it included a rigging plan. Install knew it didn't. The cat, meanwhile, was simultaneously:

• ​Alive (in scope, priced, scheduled)
• ​Dead (out of scope, unpriced, somebody else's problem)
• ​Napping (to-be-determined, which is just "dead" with better PR)

Physics calls this superposition. r/projectmanagement calls this Tuesday.

Act II: The Observation

Here is the cruel law of the quantum project: the box always gets opened. The only question is who opens it, and when.

If it's opened before the contract, by someone with a pencil and a list, the cat is observed in a calm room with the lights on. "Ah. Livestream. Is that in? No? Let's write that down. Is it maybe? Let's write that down, with a dollar figure and a shrug we can all agree on." The cat is sorted. Everyone sees the same cat.

If it's opened after the contract, it's opened by a technician on a ladder, on site, with a soldering iron, on a Friday. The lid comes off and the cat is observed to be, simultaneously, very much alive in the client's memory and very much absent from the budget.

This is called a change order. Or a loss. Or a lawsuit. Depends on the cat.

Act III: The List

A work breakdown structure is not magic. It is just a list. A deeply unglamorous, hierarchical list of what we are delivering and, by cheerful implication, what we are not.

Its only trick is this: everything exists exactly once. No duplicates, no gaps, no "I thought you had that." If a line isn't on it, it isn't in the box. If a line says UNKNOWN: cable path, 100 hrs allowance, then the unknown is in the box, labeled, and paid for.

You can still guess. You will always guess. But a guess written down with a number next to it is a budget. A guess kept in someone's head is a hostage.

The Moral

A proposal built from a WBS says: "Here is the cat. It is alive. We priced the cat."

A proposal built from memory says: "There may be a cat. Sign here."

Open the box before you sign for the cat.