Slaughter Development’s founder recently contributed as a guest to The Marketing Tech Blog. His topic: the quick-and-dirty trick for describing any project.

According to Robby Slaughter, when it comes to dealing with complicated projects, the ”Fast-Cheap-Good” rule is always a valuable yardstick when seeking results. Below is an excerpt from his post:

The purpose of this rule is to remind us that all complicated endeavors require tradeoffs. Whenever we have a gain in one area there will undoubtedly be a loss somewhere else.

. . .

This rule of thumb sometimes seems a little obvious. We all know there are tradeoffs in any project. Yet . . . project estimation is painful. That’s because clients will constantly put us in the trap of trying to deliver something which is fast, cheap and good all at the same time.

This is impossible. It’s the reason that deadlines slip, projects go over budget and quality suffers. You have to make tradeoffs.

Despite the fickle and sometimes negative connotation the word tradeoff may have, to Slaughter, its use in the ”Fast-Cheap-Good” rule is quite a valuable tool in the office:

When people ask for work to be done immediately, you can ask them if they would prefer to sacrifice quality or pay for increased costs. If someone wants to know about less expensive options, ask them if they would rather see options that connect savings to fewer features or to a longer development cycle.

To learn more about Slaughter Development’s perspective on increasing productivity and smoothing workflow in your organization, contact us today!

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