Good Fast Cheap
Good, Fast, Cheap… Have you heard this expression?
Good, Fast, Cheap… Pick any two.
This little truism can be quite enlightening when planning a system. It turns out that these are the high level variables that you try to control in the development of a product.
Good
Good refers to the quality, or suitability of a system. It tries to control for questions like; Does it really meet the market needs? Is it reliable enough?
Fast
Fast refers to the development or deployment schedule. It tries to control for questions like; Can we beat the competitors to the market? Is its performance adequate? and other temporal questions.
Cheap
Cheap is the variable for cost.
It usually refers to development budget but can mean target price. Will the market bare the price with required margin?
Pick Any Two
"Pick any Two" means that while you may be able to control for two of the previous 3 variables, the third remains independent and may run away if either of the others is too extreme.
Cost, Schedule and Content are not
orthogonal controls.
They affect each other.
Suppose you want a new product now and it has to be high quality, well then you are going to pay extra for it.
The whys are legion.
Not enough time to shop for the best deal is just one.
Or suppose rather that it has to be good but there is no schedule pressure.
This is a little trickier.
It says that since schedule is unrestrained then cost may be optimized.
It is possible it might not cost as much with careful planning.
Finally, if it has do be done now and it has to be cheap, then you can be sure that it is not going to be good.
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