Scare City, The First Business Practice that Kills Innovation

Ava Lanche is managing the inventory of supplies for the project. She gets a request from Ima, one of the analysts, for more laptops for the team of analysts starting on the project next Monday.

Just two days before, Ava had been given directions by her manager to carefully manage the inventory and make sure to minimize expenses.

So, Ava told Ima that she would receive two of the laptops she requested but for the other two, Ima would have to work with desktops. Ima choked a little as she knew that the nature of the job required the analysts to travel and to work from various locations. Ava brought out the forms for Ima to fill out and get signed before she would be able to receive the requested computers. It was Friday afternoon and the new analysts were arriving at 8 am on Monday morning. She growled with frustration knowing that her analysts would not have their equipment until Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest.

So, how often does this happen? And what are the results? In this case, the extra two days cost the project a delay of 10 days and $100K. All for the sake of a few computers and some sense of requiring control over expenditures, limiting them for the sake of cost control. And how many times, does this scenario repeat itself generating similar results across many different businesses?

Also in this case, Ima was the one blamed for the increased expenditures on the project.