The scenario:
- A planned project budget of some 25 million Euros
- A consortium of 20+ industrial partners (including all the really big global players in this area
- A project-discussion time of more than 6 months before the meeting described here
- 5 workdays until the final deadline for submitting the project proposal - no possibility of a late handin
- No coordinating partner yet
- Not even a very simple draft or outline of a proposal yet
Excerpt 1 of the consortium meeting: Trying to find a coordinating partner
... we have to agree on the coordinating partner, so please, who is willing to do it?
Why should we have a coordinating partner?
Because this is mandatory!
Are you sure?
Yes!
Sorry, we shouldn't waste our time on that, let's discuss it via email, we don't have to find the coordinator today. Let's just write a name into the proposal and then we'll see. We have more important things to discuss today...
Excerpt 2 of the consortium meeting: Trying to agree on a deadline
... we have 5 days left until we must submit our proposal - so all the partners have to describe their workpackages and send it to the coordinator, who will then compile the proposal
But we don't have a coordinator
Ok, that's right - so I'll coordinate this proposal compilation myself. Please send me your descriptions. And I would say, the deadline is in 2 days
Deadline? I don't think, we should have a deadline. We all do our best and when we're done, we'll send you the results
But when? Keep in mind that there's much work to do to make this proposal look good!
No, I'm against a deadline, what about the rest?
... nobody else said anything ...
Well, ok, then we obviously agree that we don't have a deadline. We'll send you our descriptions as soon as we have finished them
What do you think happened to the proposal? :-)
