Good, Fast, Cheap – Pick Two
The other day I got into a heated discussion with a colleague about this quote. You can Google it and it will return 100’s of pages and images. It appears that there are even businesses that post signs, telling their customers they can only have two.
In my humble opinion, any organization that communicates and/or promotes this quote is preparing you, the consumer, to either:
a. Be prepared to pay a lot (Fast/Good)
b. To be able to say “I told you so” when it didn’t go so well (Fast/Cheap)
c. Have the perfect excuse as to why your product/project is 2 weeks over due (Cheap/Good)
Personally, I would never do business with someone that would put themselves into a box. I think we should always be striving for the ‘impossible’ utopia.
Don’t get me wrong, if you are looking for a Cadillac with a Pinto budget; you will never be happy. Make sure that are you working with a vendor that you trust, understands your objectives – if you don’t trust them to give you sound advice; it is time for a change. The right relationship shouldn’t feel like a customer/vendor relationship; it should be a partnership.
Don’t limit yourself, we should always be thinking outside of the box on how to do things better, faster and more efficiently.