Handy Project Planner

The current economic climate continues to push everyone in the design and construction industry to deliver faster, produce it cheaper, and have it right the first time. You might be able to juggle those three criteria for a while, believing that you can deliver all three to their maximum potential, but it seems that very few people actually understand the relationship between these three fundamental forces. The vector diagram below shows the actual relationship between them.

If it's been a long time since you last had to deal with vector math, we'll show you the effect of this relationship. In this example, you can see that the requirements were to have it done FAST and done RIGHT. The vector sum of these two is exactly opposite CHEAP, and this is something we've all experienced, if you throw enough money at a problem, it can be handled fast and done right, but it sure won't be cheap.

In this example, the requirements were to have it done FAST and done CHEAP, and you will note that the vector sum of these two requirements is the exact opposite of RIGHT. And we've all experienced this, there's never money or time to do it right, but there's always money and time to do it twice. (But that's always much later, after the owner takes posession.)

We don't even need to show you what would happen if you found someone who demands that it be done FAST, CHEAP and RIGHT, because those three vectors sum to zero, a project that will not happen. It may be able to happen in an imaginary higher-dimensional Universe, rotated through another angle at right angles to the one we operate in with our known laws of physics and economics (that universe would be arranged along a line into, or out of the screen you are viewing), but it will never happen in the known Universe. ©Barry McKinnon 1996 Please distribute with appropriate credits for the source, thank you. Return to Main Page | Return to the Site Map | Return to All over the map List

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