Tim made a beeline for the smoking section of the restaurant--two booths in the back.

It was dark in that area with only a small lamp in one corner and whatever light that broke occasionally from the swinging door to the kitchen. Considering it was noon and the day was bright, sitting in the nicotine ghetto seemed like quite a sacrifice to make for someone's politically incorrect addiction.

But Tim is the project manager of a very big software development project, and he was paying for lunch.

Most of what gets accomplished these days is somebody's project. I've become a kind of student of projects, particularly because in the computer industry, 65 percent of projects fail. Believe it or not, that's an improvement, down from 86 percent. Statistics like this, and my experience as a consultant, have bred in me a long-standing interest in doomed projects.

I'm being facetious, but it seems to me that project managers, unlike leaders, are made, not born. They are the products of time and place--sometimes with serendipitous matching of skills and personality appropriate for the task at hand, but mostly not. There are professional project managers who have had formal training, though I've never met one.

I have met a few with considerable experience. Most of them, including the fellow who was sitting across from me, are people thrust into a position of project leadership by a few salient skills and an expedient belief that they can handle it.

"So, how's it going?" I asked. It took Tim a long time to respond as he was fumbling a cigarette toward his mouth. "Bad day," he said. "And this afternoon ..."

His voice trailed off, partly because he was lighting a cigarette and partly because he was envisioning something. Our waiter appeared just as Tim blew out the first puff of smoke. The waiter looked at the smoke and at Tim. He handed us the menus without a word.

"Let's see, the last time I talked to you was a couple of weeks ago," said Tim. I nodded. His face brightened with a small upswing of mood. "Well, we got the approval for the $400,000 to buy the software, and I've been allocated two FTEs (full time employees)."

His project is a program that tracks licenses and fees for a large state agency. It will have a database containing about 50,000 licenses, and it collects about $8 million in fees per year and serves roughly 5,000 users. It also involves protection of human health and safety. Not a trivial piece of software.

"I'm just finishing my second tour of the divisions, looking at all the current licensing programs. You wouldn't believe how many of them are still running on dBase." (Yes I would.) "There are 46--no, 48--separate programs," he continued. "They work more or less, but not entirely, together."

Thinking out loud, I chimed in, "Not very efficient."

He replied, "Worse than that, really, because many of them are well beyond maintenance." He leaned over and said with a conspiratorial whisper, "A couple of them aren't even Y2K-compliant."

I expected a thunderclap from an angry god or the state governor; instead, the waiter reappeared to take our orders.

"What's your timeline to replace all these programs?" I asked after the waiter left.

"Eight months," Tim said matter-of-factly. I almost thought he was going to reveal stunning naiveté by not qualifying his statement. Fortunately, he added, "Well, we can't incorporate everything in eight months. Still, we've got a huge leg up with this software. I told you about it didn't I?"

"Not much," I said.

"It was originally a program for licensing doctors and clinics." Tim seemed blissfully unaware of any possible incongruity in a medical licensing program that purports to cover 48 state regulatory programs. Perhaps there aren't any inconsistencies to be concerned about. After all, if you've seen one licensing program, you've seen them all.

The waiter came with the food, and Tim tucked into his lasagna with gusto.

One of the advantages of being a consultant on someone else's payroll is that I can ask probing questions with impunity. So I asked, "Uh, how does this program handle parent-and-child firms?"

Tim continued cutting a large bite of lasagna. "I'm not sure what you mean," he said.

"I mean where you have to keep track of all the branch offices in the state that are owned by a parent company--for example, a food-processing company like Purina or General Mills. They must have scores of plants and outlets here."

"Oh. We just enter them into the database," said Tim.

Bad answer--it probably indicated the software wasn't well designed for the typical state regulatory environment, but I didn't pursue the point. "How are all the business rules entered-more specifically, the rules for calculating the fees?"

Tim smiled and explained that the program was written in PowerBuilder, so they would be using control objects with code in them.

I said, "Sounds like you'll need to make some modifications. Some of these state-licensing programs have procedures that represent 40 years of legislation. They're complicated. I sure hope that $400,000 covers a few months' worth of help with coding."

Tim looked at me like I'd asked him if he liked pineapple on his lasagna. "That's what the other two people will be doing, making the modifications," he said.

"Have you hired them?" I asked.

"No, it's been difficult to find programmers with both PowerBuilder and Oracle experience."

I quickly added, "I'll bet, and then to hire them at state pay grades."

This was not good. I think Tim knew it, since he'd already been looking at the market. He might not find qualified programmers for weeks, or possibly months. Tim swept his hand through his hair, like he was brushing away irritating cobwebs. His mood was swinging down.

I wondered out loud, "How are the divisions taking this program? I imagine that some of them will be unhappy to give up control of their licensing database."

Tim looked at me again, this time with a just a hint of defensiveness. I gathered he'd run into some opposition already. I wonder if he knew just how obstinate government employees could be when confronted with a project they don't like.

I also wondered how much backbone his superiors would have when confronted with balky division personnel. Project managers have very little muscle; from time to time, they need senior management to get in there and push--or punch.

"Some of the divisions want the program on the Web."

"All of it?" I asked, incredulous.

Tim crinkled his mouth into a distraught smile and said, "What we bought is not a Web program. It runs on a minicomputer, client/server style. I could think of some aspects of this program that might be useful on the Web, but it would be a tricky piece."

Tim looked like he was reading my mind. "Yeah. It makes some sense, but we're way late to think of it now." Tim looked like he wanted to throw his fork.

"Eight divisions, 48 programs, a lot of somebody else's code. All in eight months, eh?" I really didn't want to crack him, but I wanted to see how Tim could handle the despair felt by most project managers when confronted with the realities of an impossible project.

I was glad we were in a dark corner.

Tim circled his arms around his coffee cup, which made his shoulders and head droop. He studied the coffee for a while, then looked up at me.

"Project managers are supposed to be gung-ho when they start a project." I inferred that he wanted to add, "Aren't they?"

"This is supposed to be done in eight months, and cost $400,000," he reiterated. After this recap, Tim did not smile, cry, or talk. I asked him if I could bum a cigarette.

Editor at Large Nelson King is ComputerUser's leading industry analyst.