Excuses
1. Project was underfunded.
2. The company did not support the effort.
3. My dog ate it.
4. Economic conditions soured.
5. Market forces changed unexpectedly.
6. Joe is an idiot.
7. Requirements were poorly defined.
8. Communication was lacking.
9. It was an especially mild spring and I like to play golf.
10. The ratio of available work hours to resource allocation was miss-aligned.
11. Task 163 could not be crashed beyond the law of diminishing returns.
12. There was a large concentration of staff birthdays in May and all the cake was a distraction.
Rebuttals
1. Don’t accept a project without projecting a budget that can succeed and is committed to.
2. Make sure you have resources committed that can execute even if other departments do not.
3. Get a cat.
4. The budget must be set aside and committed by leadership; if the budget is reduced, so must scope.
5. The reality is a project or product development can be a success but the product may fail.
6. Fire or pawn off Joe before he can undermine the project.
7. Define the requirements yourself, correctly, and get them signed off.
8. It’s your job to communicate, so do it, early, often, and always.
9. Take up tennis (3x the workout in 1/3 the time).
10. What ?
11. Huh ?
12. Right ?