If I had a buck for every time I've had this ­conversation I could take my wife to Starbucks and really splurge. I meet with the executive of a prospective client to discuss their soon-to-start legacy replacement project and we talk all around the main issues—resources, split of work between vendor and in-house staff, possible use of third party help, how to measure business outcomes, how not to saddle the project with so many other "related" initiatives that it will be in danger of sinking from its own weight.

Finally a "C" level somebody asks, "So, how long will this take?" Silence descends like a guillotine. The room becomes still. "C" levels and minions alike gaze at me like I'm a laboratory specimen. But this is why I am here. This is my job. In journalism they call it "speaking truth to power." In my line of work it's called "getting real."

Because inevitably the questioner already has an answer, and it is either some­thing they arbitrarily invented, heard and took out of context, made up consciously in order to "focus the team on success," or more venally fits with their bonus objectives. Regardless of its genesis, the answer which this "C" leveler already "knows" bears little if any relation to reality.