Getting them cornered

Thursday's News.

For the past few weeks I have been attempting to hand over a "project" to the teams that will take it forward through the next stages of its lifecycle. This has been made more complicated by a number of factors .....

..... firstly, I did not really work on the first phase of the project as I joined at a very late stage. To use a cooking analogy, I have basically taken the cake out of the oven and put it on a wire rack. Unfortunately I now need to tell two teams how the cake was made and the best way to store it, serve it, eat it and bake further cakes.

Secondly everyone who did help "bake the cake" has now been pulled on to more vital new projects, as have I. Consequently they not really available to assist and,. if they are, they are not really focussed. In other words they have a five tiered, fully iced, wedding cake to do and it needs to be at the Reception in the next 5 days so don't really want to tell me how this Victoria Sandwich was made. "Just have a look in Mrs Beaton. You'll be fine"

The third factor is that the teams who will take things forward are hampered by resourcing issues - THEY DON'T HAVE ANY! - and seem to prefer it if they can leave things with us. "We're not really Cake People. We're better at Pies and Pasties, You Know, Savouries"

So, after three weeks of herding cats I managed to gather a good proportion of them in a room in darkest Middlesex. I spend three hours showing them slides, that I didn't know as well as I would have liked, and hosting a discussion about whether the flour should be sieved before it is folded in. I was somewhat apprehensive as it was the first time I had run one of these sessions and it had been decided that the presence of a couple of US Executives would calm me down -NOT.

To be honest it went really well and the US Guys were appreciative and helpful.

I have mailed the teams the recipe and if they come back asking for guidance I am almost at the stage where I can reply "Google it".