IT manager pilot fish gets tapped to conduct a major hardware rollout and migration at the big aerospace company where he works.

"To help with this task, the company decided to promote our seemingly useless logistics manager to the role of logistics and IT director," fish sighs. "The gentleman in question, although he had no experience or knowledge of IT, was keen to help and justify his new position, so he asked me to take him through my proposals."

Which fish does -- and quickly spots the fact that the freshly minted IT director is hoping to score points by cutting costs on the project.

"When he asked to be taken through the proposals for the computer-aided design area of the business, I showed him some proposals for quite meaty, yet very much required, graphics cards to be fitted in the machines," says fish.

"I have to admit I found it a little funny when he turned around and told me that we were not going to put graphics cards in all of machines. When I asked why, he replied that it would give a further cost savings to the business.

"My reply was simple: If this was his decision, then he could save further by also removing the expensive 22-in. monitors from the machines that didn't need graphics cards."

Fish figures that's the end of it -- until the clueless logistics guy announces to a meeting of the big bosses that he has dramatically reduced the project's costs.

Read more at:
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/project/story/0,10801,106255,00.html