Thursday, January 08, 2009

GOOD, FAST, CHEAP

So the White House has a "Chief Performance Officer"?

Silly me, all this time I thought OMB did that stuff.

Anyhow, my crusty engineering/construction friends tell me that there are three aspects to any project--Good, Fast and Cheap. On any given project you can have two of the three.

Wonder if the the new CPO knows that. Wonder if she has already identified which two of three she is going to champion.

When it comes to, for example, Centers for Disease Control, my vote would be for "Good" and "Fast". When it comes to Missile Defense, I would go for "Good" and "Fast". Same for Veterans Affairs. Department of Commerce, maybe "Good" and "Cheap".

Anyhow, the basic point is to note that just making Departments "Better" is doomed to fail. PEBO and and CFO will have to decide what they are after: Good, Fast or Cheap, pick any two.

2 Comments:

At 3:51 PM, January 08, 2009, Blogger ursadailynews said...

Crusty?!?

And by the way, you can't just go out and pick which two objectives will be realized in any project. Sometimes you can only get one -in which case it better be quality - and sometimes none are achieved. Look at the Big Dig in Boston - over budget, faulty workmanship, and completed behind schedule.

 
At 3:57 PM, January 08, 2009, Blogger UMRBlog said...

Yeah, there are three of them and they are eccentric and crabby enough for ten guys.

I think you're mico-making my point. A CPO bean counter is not going to be able to divide all of the USA's missions up and then decide which prongs she wants to emphasize.

Boston, is an example of no attempt to define outcomes multiplied by kicking-back corruption.

Mitt made it all better, though. He fired some guy. That'll teach 'em.

TYFCB

 

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