One plan to rule them all

Incident: G. Myers was overseeing a full office migration -- at least from an IT perspective. The company was building a new office site in a nearby town over from the old one. As usual in these situations, the IT staff is tasked with making sure all the data, voice, fax, and other ports are wired to the appropriate drops in the appropriate numbers. According to Myers, everything gets drawn out to painful detail on the blueprints: dual data; single or dual voice depending on where you are; each drop located and numbered. Everyone checks off, the contractors are happy, and the site is built out. Finally, the electricians and cable guys come in and do the drops.

This is where the fun starts. The operations manager, who is definitely the boss in this scenario, says he does a walkthrough, checking everything against the blueprints. The IT guys are not given permission to take a day and go check the drops. The ops manager gives the OK; the walls are closed, and painters are called in. Organ music plays ominously in the background.

Worried, Myers goes to see the CEO a few days later under the cover of good-naturedly asking for a better office at the new site. The blueprints are in the CEO’s office, spread out on his mini-conference table. Myers gets to look them over and starts asking questions about the state of the wiring. Things seem to check out, but then he notices a big red circle around a research lab room with a note saying, “No data.”

Myers shows it to the CEO, the CEO calls in the ops guy, and all three of them stand around scratching their heads. They call someone on-site at the new office; sure enough, this room received no data drops of any kind -- and originally it was supposed to receive just less than 40. They circle back with the contractor and the architect. It turns out a senior marketing guy thought that room said “Research Library” and decided that it didn’t need data jacks -- which still doesn’t make sense, but who’s complaining? He decided to mark it that way and nobody checked twice.

Fallout: A busted budget. The walls had to be reopened, new cables run -- the works.

Moral: Always, always double- and triple-check important plans being implemented by contractors. That or don’t let them have access outside of project manager supervision.

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