JRhodes writes:
>>I've never ceased to be amazed at
the amount of miscommunication that occurs among project participants when
definitions are not agreed on as a very first step.  In a management class I
took,
this first step was called "defining the universe".  Only after everyone
concerned,
from project professional to owner  to end user, is on the same page<<

I'm glad to hear someone else say this. Even back in the old days when I was
a full time tradesperson I used to try to gather everyone together early in
the project and make sketches and write in the names everyone one was
calling the various building parts. I would take a certain amount of flack
for this, but I knew I needed the info just to do my own work. Since then it
has become a standard part of my work as a tradesperson, project manager and
consultant. Once I was called into a project to solve the problem of the six
34'
tall Ionic column shafts that were ordered 24" too short to fit the existing
structure. Well, there was a big onsite confabulation, with the owner,
architect, project manager, contractor, sub-contractor, lead carpenter and
the poor soul who had ordered the mis-sized goods, which were worth about
$30,000. There were no project drawings so my first step was to stand there,
sketch out the porch and ask each person involved what they called each part
of the porch. There were an awful lot of vacant eyes staring into outer
space and a certain amount of impatient foot tapping and rattling of coins
in pockets. After about 15 minutes it was clear that there were at least
three different names for each part. It turned out that the contractor had
ordered 32' "columns" not realizing that a "column" includes the "cap,"
the "shaft" and the "base." So, when the "shafts" arrived they were 24" too
short. Then everyone was very anxious to spend another hour hashing out what
to call each porch part for the purpose of preventing another $30,000
mistake. With every porch part named and everyone back on the same planet
earth that took care of the root cause of the problem. But they were all
still looking at me like I'm supposed to know what to do about six short
shafts. I put my pencil in my pocket, tossed my clip board on the steps,
sauntered over to the back of my pickup, and pulled out my trusty old-time
column stretcher.

John (name it & claim it) Leeke
by hammer and hand great works do stand
by mind and thought best words are wrought