Imagine: you are lying in a conference room. Neon lights are flickering. Someone is handing out PowerPoint printouts. And suddenly you hear a sentence that is both a promise and a warning:
“It’s all in the contract.”
Cut.
We descend one level deeper, into the reality of the project. Welcome to our journey through (nightmare) worlds of promises, roles, expectations, and realities that overlap like mold spots in a neglected shed.
The architect sits on our first level.
He loves structures made of glass and shaky statics.
“Of course we can do it in eight weeks. With AI. And blockchain. And fully integrated. Our team is ready.”
The fact that no one asked the team is just a minor detail.
The result is a complicated contract full of ambitious schedules that defy the laws of physics, and requirements that could only be met with a 12-person development team plus three miracle workers.
We sink deeper. Reality becomes more viscous.
Here we encounter organizations that have recently merged: half the teams don’t know each other, the product portfolio is its own project consisting of eight legacy systems, and every advisory body has its own idea of “best practices.”
The project team struggles; the plan exists only in an unattainable parallel universe. They wade through quality fluctuations as if through thick mud, with no solid ground beneath their feet. To make matters worse, the next layer consists of thick fog that cloaks all parties in silence. Communication has come to a standstill.
Maybe all problems will resolve themselves if we just stay silent long enough?
Spoiler alert: they won’t. On the contrary: risks are shared too late. The schedule is already running backwards…
We are falling deeper.
On the next level, everyone stands around holding smudged, empty coffee cups, and raises their eerie voices in an ominous chorus. They speak a sentence that can turn any project vision into a nightmare: “We’ll analyze that briefly in the concept phase. Later, eventually…”
Four weeks later:
“We’re almost done. Actually, it shouldn’t be this complicated.”
Deadlines are missed, change requests rain down from the sky, and the pulse of the project is now determined by escalations.
We sink into the next level: a kaleidoscope of contradictions and paradoxes.
The contract says: “Role X delivers Y in week 3.”
Reality says: “Role X only exists on Mondays between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m.”
Capacities, priorities, responsibilities: everything falls apart like a cheap sci-fi effect and degenerates into a sobering déjà vu.
The responsibilities that were initially so clearly defined degenerate into ghost roles: “Wait… who’s doing what now?” A leadership vacuum emerges, communication comes to nothing, desires and possibilities drift blindly apart without ever approximating each other.
The next abyss is about to swallow us whole, and an eerie echo emanates from one of the upper layers.
From a distant place, the contract calls out: “Deadline!”
With a booming echo, reality responds: “We have vacation time next week and two sick notes.”
Replanning becomes inevitable; the contract alone does not create feasibility.
When contractual expectations collide with reality, the roar vibrates in our ears from all directions. Like a wake-up call, the thunder shakes all levels of the nightmare plane, one after the other, creating a deafening limbo of decay; there is shouting, emailing, and escalation (preferably on Fridays at 4 p.m.)
Of course, this is met with pure joy… Mistrust arises, the work pace slows down.
The floor is twisting in circles, we seem to be turning incessantly around our own axes, around each other, everything is whirling and swirling and is stuffed with hopeless dialogues.
“We’ve fulfilled everything.”
“No, that wasn’t in the acceptance description.”
“What acceptance description?”
We continue to fall through smoke and mirrors. An external project manager is hired. He is officially authorized, but in practice the team will only trust him once he has proven his worth. His formal power evaporates.
But suddenly, from this level of powerlessness, an awakening, liberating gong of energy (or is it renegotiation?) sounds vigorously.
It shines like a gleeming, hopeful light, and suddenly, instead of falling deeper, we rise up to a different layer, a level where the theoretical blueprint of the contract has been answered with additional measures. We float upward, past clearly defined validation criteria, partial acceptanc plans, bonuses, and measurable expectations. The confused poetry of expectations clears, and from a distance we finally recognize a solid feast of facts.
We continue to rise, toward the shining hope of a successful project completion.
On the next plane, all fog has cleared, we see clear documentation, realistic schedules, and open communication, stable project realities are created in which experts feel responsible again.
Less room for interpretation, more motivation. Resistance decreases, speed increases. The project gains traction.
We fly faster and faster until we almost wake up from our layered dream. We can already see ourselves in front of a contract that contains realistic time buffers, defines clear roles, describes objective success criteria, establishes transparent escalation paths, and unambiguously anchors communication obligations.
Through replanning, genuine role clarification, milestones, symbolic relief, transparent escalations, and functioning committees, the crisis vortex turns into a self-reinforcing cycle based on recognition, clarity, and genuine responsibility.
With a final dose of pragmatic drive, we emerge fully, eagerly looking forward to the ideal contract…
But suddenly, nagging doubts arise; the totem is still spinning, the kick came from a different direction – this is not the real contract, we had been blinded by wishful thinking. And then, a voice emerges from somewhere:
“Well, I interpreted the contract a little differently at this point…”
And head over heels we plummet again, in which direction is unclear: up, down, left, right. At first glance, everything is different again…
And now?
The contract defines expectations.
Reality sets limits.
In between lies a dream space of opacity, assumptions, interests, and capacities.
Only when institutional, communicative, and symbolic measures are added and the levels are united – only then can this dream space be illuminated…
