There must be give and take compromise. This can only be effective with joint and open work sessions. And, all parties need to be ready to back away from their established positions, and rethink all viable alternatives. There is no substitute for having well-defined problem resolution processes. All you need is time, money, and the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Software testing is the unappreciated project killer.
It s easy to find cases in which finishing up the software takes two to six months longer than the physical aspects of the installation. Almost everyone preaches the Gospel of No Modifications, until some brave soul points out the absolute necessity of a few critical mods. And, along with not having enough resources to work on the mods, there isn t enough time to test and debug them. Short-cutting testing is a tactic only for someone with a death wish. Vendors often have no way of knowing which bugs are most important to work on first, so they are all treated equally.