Definition:
Normally just shortened to “Flower Sink” this is something that sounds like it should be easy but in reality its something that causes utter hell to implement, sometimes used in a slightly derogatory way if you call a stakeholder (any gender) “Mrs Blanding” to mean someone who does not understand the consequences of their actions or demands.
Explanation:
This is best explained by merely watching the YouTube video attached. But I’ll paraphrase it here. Basically, an old black and white movie from 1950 called “Mr. Blanding’s builds his dream house” has this one scene where there’s this huge bill that’s just come in, and they try and track down where its come from for this custom house. It turns out that it’s from a tiny and seemingly innocuous request made by Mrs. Blanding, the architect explains the whole detail of why it’s caused such an expense and the background for such a huge knock on effect from a really simple and what should have been an easy request. It is the best and original example of when someone comes up to you and asks for something that “will just take a minute” and then they do not accept that to just make their little request will cause lots of things to need to be done and have huge knock on effects. It is also one of the few examples where you can take someone who is simply not getting that such things have a huge impact and showing them the video, because it’s so old and so venerable it rarely causes offence, so it’s more useful than just about any of these corporate terms that you’ll read here.
Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.