The show must go on

It's not yet dawn on Tuesday and I'm back at the all-too-familiar BA Lounge wondering if / when they'll cancel my flight to Oslo.

I'm delivering a 1-dayer to a new team and because yesterday's flight didn't happen, the earliest I'll make it to the meeting is 11am. I'll have lost over two hours of meeting time so my value proposition has already been compromised. Part of me wants the flight to be pulled so that we can reschedule and I can get / give the client the full day as sold in. But the earliest they can reconvene the meeting is May and in these straitened times too much can happen between then and now.

I have to want this job to happen today and I have to deliver as promised, regardless of the compromises

At least I'm aware of what's going on. A lot of smaller businesses are under unspoken pressure to willfully ignore the compromises (time, budget, deadlines) and simply say 'Yes' to every sniff of work. The danger here is that the little guy gives his (larger) competitors the chance to claim he overpromises and underdelivers.

Unfortunately the only solution is to do more with less. Like I said, I have no option other than to turn up and deliver.