Secret But Historic Baseline Change Proposals

 

With the upcoming release of the movie Spectre, I thought I would, once again, employ my own Bond, James Bond-like skills, and infiltrate PMI®’s top-secret archive vault to review some of their most closely-guarded documents. The safe is behind the velvet Elvis painting in the President’s office, and the combination is still the factory setting. What I found inside was both amazing, and highly appropriate for dissemination among my readers.

In a red folder marked “Top Secret: The Evolution of Change Control,” I found some time-yellowed papers that appeared to be antique Baseline Change Proposals, or BCPs. Holding my little flashlight in my mouth, I snapped photos of them before putting them back. Here are some of the jaw-dropping highlights.

Contractor: Hamlet
BCP #2
Date: 5 March 1512
Cause of Baseline Change: The baseline needst to be changed because the scope has dramatically (get it?) changethed. The original scope statement, “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark,” was clearly very general. As I undertookst the investigation, two things became readily apparent:
1.    The King did not die of natural causes, and
2.    My Uncle is not only the most likely suspect, but he’s the current king, having married my mother.
BCP #1, submitted two weeks ago, was rejected outright, the only explanation given being “visitations from ghosts do not, generally speaking, meet the evidentiary threshold for altering a baseline.” Contractor’s response: yeah, verily, I didn’t see any of your happy posteriors up on the battlements when that went down, so you wouldn’t really know now, wouldst thou? Rather than revisit that issue, this BCP (#2) seeks to establish that, even if (1) above is rejected, there can really be no doubt that “King” Claudius is a very poor choice for ruler, having claimed the throne through the highly suspect tactic of marrying in to it. 
Impact of Change: the customer has dithered so long on the proposed action of overturning Claudius without the consent of (1) the Queen, (2) Polonius, (3) Laertes, and (4) any of an additional dozen self-identified “stakeholders,” one of whom is certifiably insane, that it looks like the contractor is riddled with hesitations and doubt, which will, no doubt, become the narrative of choice. 

Contractor: H. Potter & Associates
BCP#: 1
Date: Present Day
Cause of Baseline Change: Contractor personnel, being a rather gifted magicians, have accessed the archives hidden behind the velvet Elvis painting, and that Hamlet fellow has nothing on us. Our original scope was to simply graduate Hogwarts; it was only after enrolling that the contractor’s personnel were confronted with a few scope-changing facts, including:
1.    The ultimate bad guy, the known focus of evil in the Magical World, assumed by all to be dead, is, in fact, alive.
2.    …and pursuing a vendetta against Contractor personnel.
3.    Customer was originally scheduled to provide Contractor an education; instead, Contractor is being compelled to confront said ultimate adversary, and overcome him and his thousands of followers, on behalf of Customer. 
Impact of Change: In light of these facts (#3, especially), Contractor seeks relief in the form of a significantly extended schedule, as well as profoundly enhanced remuneration for the difficulties already sustained.

So, I am now going to play the part of Wikileaks, and release these Baseline Change Proposal documents I photographed out of PMI®’s vaults as they become relevant. But I’d rather not move to Russia…