Historically, I’ve been a fan of project triangles. I still remember being in a classroom and hearing the line “good, fast, cheap pick two.” The idea behind the good, fast, cheap project triangle is that you can only have two, if you pick good and fast, you need to spend money so it won’t be cheap. Or if you want fast and cheap it won’t be good. Or if you want good and cheap it won’t be fast.
For the longest time I believed that. But I’ve changed my mind.
I don’t think good, fast and cheap are that different. You can make it so that Good can equal fast and cheap. Simple leading to less features, leading to quicker development cycles which then lead to less costs incurred.
Some of my favourite things these days are good, fast and cheap. Twitter, built on a relative shoestring compared to other social networks, is simple, fast and good. Wordpress, likewise. The Ipod was good, fast and expensive and sure it may not be cheap, but I bet Apple spends less on making the iPod then MSFT spent on making the Zune and we all know who’s winning that one.
Rupert Murdoch once said “The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow”. But I think speed is only one third of the battle.
If you’re not going to be all three look for someone to come around and out execute you. If you’re good and fast, but expensive someone will come round and do it cheaper. If you’re making a fast and cheap widget that’s not good, someone will make a better widget. If you’re making something on the cheap, that could be really good but you’re not fast someone will come round and beat you to market. It’s a different world today. A world where you can break out of triangles and frameworks if you work hard at it.
It’s no longer good enough to be 2 out of 3 in speed, execution and strategy. The new world demands 3/3.
Update – wrote a redux, follow up to this post.
