Synchronicity, 2nd Edition

21. BARRICADES

The target date for the completion of the global scenarios was September 1, 1992. On that date we were scheduled to present the scenarios to the Committee of Managing Directors, Shell’s top management team, for approval, and, if approved, then for dissemination throughout the entire Shell Group of companies. This was an inviolate target date, and so from the outset we had constructed a critical path we were following. The pressure was constantly on, but by January of that year, we were still on target.

We put together a six-person editorial team representing all of the project teams and locked ourselves away for two solid weeks in a private room on the top floor of a club in central London. We had breakfast and lunch there, and ...