I had a job last week that should've been straightforward. The technical part? Easy. I've done it dozens of times.
The problem was I spent half the day waiting on someone else.
I was on site, ready to go. But every step forward required a remote tech who was juggling three other projects. I'd finish my piece, then wait. Get confirmation, move forward, then wait again. None of the delays were long enough to complain about individually, maybe 15 minutes here, 30 there, but they added up.
What should've taken four hours took seven.
When I submitted the invoice, the client pushed back on the hours. Fair enough, it looked like scope creep. But it wasn't. The work didn't expand. The plan just assumed the remote tech would be available when I needed them, and they weren't.
That's the part nobody wants to budget for: coordination time.
What I'm thinking about now:
Most job overruns aren't decided during execution, they're baked in during planning. Once you assume ideal availability and linear sequencing, you're already committed to the outcome. You just don't know it yet.
This keeps happening. POS rollouts, network projects, field service jobs, same pattern. We plan like resources will be there when we need them, then act surprised when reality doesn't cooperate.
I don't have it figured out, but I think it starts with planning for coordination, not just task time. If we're going to budget realistically, we need to account for the fact that most jobs depend on people who are doing three things at once.
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