An exercise in speculation

Having been paid for the last 20+ years to read the fine print in big contracts, this writer believes she has a fairly good grasp of how they are written and of the different loopholes less-than-honest negotiators can exploit for their own interests.

Although people from every country of the world could find similarities with contracts that made the headlines in their own motherland, this write-up is by no means intended to vilify anybody or any specific country without proof. Indeed, we don't have any proof and would only like to attract the attention of the general public to risks of unpatriotic behaviour embedded in such big contracts.

Let's take, for example, the theoretical example of a relatively small country ordering several aircraft; contracting with a foreign security company to rid itself of the drug trafficking menace; buying state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to better monitor telephone usage; contracting the building of tens of thousands of houses; or building a monorail.

The theoretical careful reader of these news, having at heart to educate him/herself as much as possible on the affairs of his/her country, would have researched the foreign contractors and established that they were nonexistent; created a mere few days before the deal was discussed; without any identifiable track record of prior achievements; or so seriously indebted that their continued existence would be a matter of concern.

This theoretical careful reader would wonder whether the relatively small country officials did even ten minutes research into the foreign contractors to ascertain the feasibility of the contracts. Surely, a company that doesn't exist, or was formed three days before the deal, or that is crippled by debt would find it difficult to perform, wouldn't it? Surely, that much would be obvious to the least educated person, let alone high government officials, wouldn't it?

Like yours truly, this theoretical careful reader has been reading every single word of thousands of contracts and agreements over a 20-year span and knows a bit about the terms of conditions usually included in such instruments.

Considering the most plausible answers to this theoretical careful reader's above-mentioned questions, the next question would be: why sign anything if you know or suspect the contract can't possibly be performed?

There comes the loophole we alluded to earlier on. It's very boilerplate wording, very neat, and shouldn't be seen as anything sinister if the signatories' intentions were pure. Our experience is that whenever a deal is struck, and in order to secure the order for the contractor who will have spent money to put up a proposal, then will have to spend more to hire extra workforce and, generally speaking, make provisions to begin performance at the appointed date, all contracts include a provision which in effect says that if, at this point, you renege on your word or for any reason rescind your commitment to this agreement, you will owe the supplier penalties to cover their expenses and general inconvenience. These penalties are often a percentage of the contract price. The higher the price, the higher the penalty.

And in this theoretical string of seemingly senseless and impossible deals, what if the officials were signing in full knowledge of their co-contractors' dubious history or prospects? What if they even were in cahoots with them to share the spoils once the deals reach the headlines, there is public outcry, and the Parliament refuses to confirm the deals or rescinds them? What if pocketing a percentage of these penalties were the main motivation behind these so-called miracle deals (after a few weeks in the limelight and self-aggrandizement)?

Although this is all purely theoretical, the concerned, careful citizen may want to think about it and ask their government to provide verifiable background information on all the contractors entrusted with helping to build their country's development. Although nobody in their right mind would hope this theory to prove true, the concerned citizens of any country of the world would certainly do a service to the motherland by demanding that the standards of disclosure be improved.

Of the relevance of school teachings

One thing that strikes me as odd is that most students seem to memorise lessons just to get a "pass" mark at the next test and then hurry to forget all about the notions learned, instead of finding practical uses for them in their daily lives.

Although I didn't enjoy my years of studying management for various reasons, I did grab a few notions I keep using to this day and made them so much part of my everyday reasoning that I seldom stop and think "hey, that useful bit? I learned it formally in school 20+ years ago and see how it comes handy now again!"

Now that I hear a lot about the relevance of what is taught (or rather, the lack of it) in schools everywhere and in Ghana in particular, I've decided to give it a serious and organised thought and pick at the most useful habits, ways of analysing a problem and dealing with everyday situations I can trace back to what was, I can assure you, a very dull period of my life. I intend to write a series of posts which I hope will help give students motivation to look beyond the next test and the grades they need to get a "pass" in the subjects they're studying to detect what materials have the potential of being lifelong props for their whole thought system.

The last two posts (First come, first served and Project Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) and Gantt charts) are the first in this series. Please keep coming to this blog and see what's new here and how old school teachings can be useful in your everyday life.

Project Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) and Gantt charts

Although this business management technique seems to be slightly more difficult to comprehend than the previous one (First come, first served), it actually makes the management of tasks and organisation of work much simpler.

Let's start with a general definition of PERT:

"PERT is a method to analyze the involved tasks in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total project."

Simply put, make a list of things to do to bring about a desired result, and how long each of them will take. This is something each one of us can and should do, be it in our personal or professional lives, in order to get a clearer idea of steps to our goal and predictable speed of achievement.

Let's draw a table where Column 1 would be titled "Task", Column 2 "Duration", Column 3 "Prerequisite."

Once this table is complete, we will want to get a better, graphical idea of the timeline and tasks that can or should be run concurrently. An exemple follows.

We'll then draw a network diagram, also called Gantt chart (developed by a Mr. Gantt), described by Wikipedia as follows:

"A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Some Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e. precedence network) relationships betweek activities. Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and a vertical "TODAY" line as shown here. "

For simple projects, a piece of paper, a pencil and an eraser will be good enough. For more complex situations, there are numerous software which will help you draw a chart from organising next Sunday's festive lunch to developing a new airplane. You may try your hand at one for free here. Another interesting source is here. These are not recommendations and I don't endorse either of these companies or their products. These suggestions are inserted only for illustration purposes.

Although PERT and Gantt are old news in most of the world, they still provide robust project management methods. I'm sure trying them will open you to a whole new world of possibilities and make previously insurmountable projects a collection of streamlined, easy to manage smaller tasks.

Readers, I will appreciate your feedback here. Please let me know whether you think this article opened new possibilities for you and how you intend to use them. Conversely, if you don't think these suggestions useful, please let me know why, and what would be a better way of tackling project management in your line of business.

First come, first served

In an attempt to provide constructive suggestions to improve customer service, which some would agree is rather lacking here, I will offer here short posts describing principles that can be applied easily in all areas of business, be it in street hawking, trading, or utility hotline management.

The first of them is "First Come, First Served". Wikipedia explains it as:

"a service policy whereby the requests of customers or clients are attended to in the order that they arrived, without other biases or preferences. The policy can be employed when processing sales orders, in determining restaurant seating, on a taxi stand, for example. In Western society, it is the standard policy for the processing of most queues in which people wait for a service."

It seems to me that applying this principle strictly will help bring more order in most businesses, relieve the operators and attendants of the headache of conflicting priorities and alleviate the public's frustration.

Readers, I would like to get your opinions on this. Do you think it a good idea? If not, why? And what would you suggest instead?

Commenting is not complaining

A very long absence, due to my doubts about how useful it is to discuss everyday topics in this blog or anywhere else, when more often than not commenting on situations is considered disgraceful complaining.

I've therefore decided to give it another try, this time with what I believe could be workable suggestions. Exposing an issue AND suggesting improvements. Time will tell if it works. Readers, I thank you in advance for your constructive criticism.