In Part I of this two-part article, I wrote about winning as only the first step in building a lasting relationship with a sponsor. That piece was focused on the researcher who, in the end, only has to report on her results. In this companion piece I am writing for the leaders of teams that have to deliver something other than a report. Perhaps you proposed to conduct a field campaign, set up a lab, or built an instrument. In either case, your team is suddenly much bigger and you will likely depend on a close collaboration with a group of implementers and your home organization. Either a college or university, national lab, or private or public company.

As for the individual researcher, what an organization does after the win is critical for the success of future proposals. How you “perform” on a contract or grant will impact future funding decisions. That’s why you need, in the proposal phase, to have good representation from the groups who are implementing your project. If you cannot implement a project, a win will turn sour quickly. For all of this, let us assume that your proposal team has not bamboozled the reviewers and convinced them that you can do something you cannot. Which is a lot harder to do than people worry about. You are much more likely to run into resistance from your implementer who has to live up to the promises you are making. 

One of my favorite examples of professional optimism that implementers have to live with are efficiencies that stem from manufacturing multiple copies of a single item. An overeager estimator may quote an 80 percent leaning curve. That means that every time cumulative production doubles, the average cost or time per unit decreases by 20 percent. That doesn’t sound so bad until you apply it too broadly. I have been cooking breakfast for decades and I am still waiting for my eggs to be done in half the time. Some things just can’t be sped up and efficiencies are rarely realized at the rate imagined before project start.  

If you are working for an organization with a long history that has kept good records, you may be looking at past performance to estimate the future. “We have done this before and know what it takes,” is the usual argument. Is the task really identical to what you have done before, or is it just similar? What impact do any differences have on the estimate? Do you still have all the people and tools in place? Was the reference task performed last week or five years ago? Unless you have an ongoing production line that is now producing what you are looking for and will continue to produce the units by the time you are ready to buy them, surprises are guaranteed.  

Let me add that in many organizations you’ll find a structural conflict between the new business organization and the implementers. A former colleague used to put this in hunting terms: On the one side are the “baggers” and on the other, the “skinners.” One group is focussing on tracking down and catching the game, putting it in the bag, and bringing it home. At home there is different group working to extract all the value out of the catch and putting dinner on. The two groups work to very different boundary conditions. Baggers must have an optimistic outlook to convince executives to go after the next big game. Skinners, on the other hand, are trained to imagine all that can go wrong and guard against it through additional funding or schedule reserves. Anything skinners are ready to sign up for will take longer and cost more than baggers find reasonable.  

Whenever I find myself between the two sides, I like to remind everyone of our shared goal: Do projects that benefit us all. Unaffordable projects do not get funded and projects that fail to live up to high expectations undermine sponsor confidence. While I too have heard the saying that a good compromise leaves everyone angry, I prefer the insight that either side has to give more than they thought they’d be comfortable giving. Winning is never comfortable, not at the beginning, the middle, or the end. 

If you are a researcher about to step up to lead one of these projects, you have to make sure to not only listen to the friendly baggers but also to the often grouchy skinners. Otherwise you might be in for a big surprise when your project “unexpectedly” turns conservative. Your best bet against such a surprise are lots of conversations and well-documented assumptions that both the baggers and the skinners have agreed to. At the very least this will leave you with something to point to and say: “Remember what we all agreed to?”