Want it good, fast or cheap?

“Good, fast, cheap. Choose two.” is a well-known project management adage.

At the moment a topic I am focussed on is remodelling and redecorating homes. I’m looking at that for myself, as are other family and friends.

It has me musing about when getting things, say, 90% “good”, as opposed to when getting closer to 100% is the right choice.

As an example, if Covid-19 tests are only 90% accurate then that is an important gap between 90–100%, but sometimes getting colour choices in redecorating may be less vital that you get close to 100%, and similarly a real variance can occur in decisions of many kinds in business.

We make so many decisions all the time, sometimes we may not be aware of our choices, around “fast, good, cheap” and around how good is good enough.

Let’s explore this, then I ask you to seek to be aware of how good is good enough for your own project management decision-making.

So, as an example, the (I thought!) simple topic of redecorating homes.

For me, historically when it comes to choosing colours for paint on walls it was often, well, “white”.

White can be “90% good” and can be decided fast and the decision-making process in itself is also, therefore, “cheap”. The same logic would apply to me around…