Quick, Cheap, and Good (Enough)

Government agencies are most guilty of pursuing, albeit with the best of intentions, the perfect solution at the expense of an adequate, but good solution. Most often this is done by adhering to a rigid process of competitive bidding and formal rules, only to turn away competitive but partial solutions, or worse, to accept the lowest cost solution, one which may well not be the best-fit solution. Too often, the result of this mindset is the opposite of perfect - the worst outcomes - either doing nothing - wasting valuable time and resources - or getting taken to the cleaners.

This brief is intended as a challenge to the status quo of public bidding and vendor selection, which too often seeks optimal solutions on behalf of the public interest, but ends up with sub-optimal results. MetroNetIQ suggests that its time for a reality reset when it comes to city government processes and results.

Reality Reset

1. There is no such thing as a Free Lunch. This is one of the hardest things for even a reasonable person to accept. Indeed, it is childish to hold on to the belief that one can get things for free. We learn through life experience the strings that come attached with "free" offers.

We learn through buying and selling, gaining experience in the marketplace, that giving time to a vendor at the door or a salesperson on the phone is an actual commercial exchange - while accepting a vendor overture rarely results in the promises that first come across the threshold, it may well be worth the time if one learns something.

In point of fact, "Free" is always subsidized by someone, somewhere, so there is someone picking up the tab out there, carrying an expectation of a payoff, whenever costs are incurred. There's an implied debt whenever a gift is accepted. Beware the gift that comes with strings attached.

There is almost always a sacrifice of quality, for instance, when a "free" gift is accepted. It is rare that something of true quality is offered for free.

Paying for something should always be acceptable, IF there is a fair exchange of value - that is, in fact, the very definition of commerce.

"One can't get something for nothing" is a primary lesson of adulthood that we all must accept and keep in mind, because we're constantly told the opposite by people who want something from us. Growing up means accepting reality, and one of the toughest lessons to learn and relearn is that "free" is not, in fact, "free," no matter how attractive it may look.

2. Low Bid is Not Always Best Bid. If we can't have it for free, we often shouldn't even want it for cheap! This is worth a small digression...

The Golden Triangle

When it comes to digital transitions and metropolitan broadband projects, all of us are bounded by some basic constraints that govern any procurement or project.

There's a business maxim one could call the "Rule of the Business Golden Triangle." You may recognize it by the name of the Project Triangle: you'll no doubt recognize its truths as you read on.

According to the Rule, when it comes to procurements and projects, one cannot have one's cake and eat it too. That's reality in the business world.

The three aspects of the golden triangle that control and impact any project manager's prospects are Time (fast v. slow, sooner v. later), Quality (high quality v. low quality), and Money (less expensive v. more expensive).

To recognize the truth of the Rule, just try to imagine getting just what one would want - the Best Case: very high quality, immediately, for very little money - let's face it, that's not going to happen, that's a fantasy world.

Or imagine the polar opposite, the Worst Case: getting something of very low quality over a long period, with project delays, while spending a lot - unfortunately, that may just happen, and that's getting taken to the cleaners.

While one extreme is possible but unlikely (the best case), another is regrettably common (the worst case, above).

The rational choices in a procurement or business decision guide the outcomes, and too often the worst case is the result, when better alternatives are available.

Alternately, project managers should focus on best possible outcomes in the middle of those two extremes - they should pick two factors that are most important and relax the third constraint:

Middle of the Road Outcomes

a) Fast and less expensive, but lower quality. Strategy: Lower one's standards (accept less quality or fewer options, usually achieved through extensive planning and negotiation between stakeholders to determine the must-have items and the nice-to-have items and then setting priorities).

b) High quality and less expensive, but takes more time. Strategy: Start the project earlier (to be a responsible steward of time as a resource, a city leader would start a low-grade project immediately to get a jump on things and then move at a reasonable pace to allow adequate time to find savings and develop creative approaches that would leverage existing assets or competitive advantages).

c) Fast and high quality, but costs more. Strategy: Pay more (budget more to accommodate a higher expense, create a strong business case to justify a financial strategy, identify alternate grant or funding sources, etc.).

Of course, there is nothing to prevent the wise public sector consumer from experimenting at the outset with all three of these strategies, in order to keep one's options open - taking such a path would provide optimal flexibility to let the city then choose the constraint to relax when it came time for a procurement or decision.

The bottom line? If one is interested in digital transition and metropolitan broadband as an option for one's community, one is best served to bring in professional help to find the right fit, devise a strategy, and develop a business case, all of which will position one and allow one and one's city to:
1) get serious about things sooner than later;
2) retain the most options for when one must decide;
3) leverage time as a resource;
4) get the best prices; and
5) keep quality high.

There's no substitute for:
1) taking the bull by the horns and taking responsibility for one's own destiny;
2) approaching a project with as many factors in one's favor as possible; and
3) spending a little up front to save a lot on the back end.

Getting back then to the Reality Reset of city government processes and results:

3. A changing environment demands adaptation; doing nothing is a choice too. The essence of denial is that if I don't recognize something, if I avoid facing it, then it doesn't exist. Living in denial is alternately seen as childish, immature, or unhealthy behavior. It's often called various things in shorthand: "Burying your head in the sand." "Running away from your problems." "Delaying the inevitable."

Traffic increases or economic activity dwindles. Without a clear strategy to monitor a changing world and adapt a city or organization's strategy to manage its position in that world, it becomes inevitable that one's position will decline. Any system faces decline without new energy being fed into it.

The concept of Entropy is a physical reality, not readily understood, and even less readily accepted by the psyche - it says that left alone, all things will decay over time, from a state of order to a state of disorder.

Quit investing in the future, and watch the world around you slip into decay. If the world is constantly changing, then one must constantly spend energy (time, money, etc.) to adapt in order to stay even, and spend even more energy (time, money, etc.) in order to move ahead and do better than the rest. Doing nothing is a choice, but in a highly dynamic environment, it becomes a choice to fall behind.

4. The world is now digital, demanding a strategy to coexist, to balance the ancient human elements of life with the efficiencies of a newly digital world. Gone are the days when digital High Tech was a novelty, or even an option. Digital Integration is now an essential element of life.

No longer is it the case where one could pretend that high tech did not matter - to pretend otherwise, to cling to old analog tools and processes, is to accept less efficiency and more cost. That is not to say that all things digital are good, necessary or even effective; to discern the mix between old and new requires an investment of time and attention, to gain the understanding and experience to tell the difference.

The silicon chip is now pervasive, and increasingly, connectivity over an IP network is becoming just as pervasive. To deny the need for broadband is to deny reality. To deny the need for mobile broadband is equally evasive, because as new tools become available, they offer an adaptability challenge that we either accept or deny.

Going through a digital transition is a matter of When, not If.

5. Life is a Series of Choices and Consequences. Individually and collectively, we each choose to be In the Game or On the Sidelines. There are costs and benefits to either choice, but the reality is that we do not get a third choice.

The Reality of Freedom means that there are Choices and there are Consequences. Having to choose is indeed a burden, just as not having an ability to choose is a burden. Life is a burden, that's reality.

Freedom of choice places a premium on education and learning to make good choices, profitable choices, beneficial choices, healthy choices, just choices.

Refusing to make a choice is in itself a different kind of choice, with its own set of consequences, including the lack of experience that comes with being engaged in a project.

Delaying a choice opportunity is a strategy that can be appropriate or inappropriate, given the circumstances at hand.

Denying a choice opportunity, at least as an adult in a free society, is an aversion to accepting reality. Sometimes reality can present a series of "bad" choices that can seem like the same as no choice at all. But in that case, we are forced to weigh the outcomes and choose the least bad option - that is reality - to say that there is no choice is to play the victim, to deny that one is in control.

On this topic, I'm obliged to share a statement actually made by the CEO of a major corporation where I worked - I was only a week or two into the new job, when I took my first trip to corporate headquarters to attend an annual all-hands conference. The CEO gave a headliner speech, where he described the bleak business environment in our industry at the time and shared this pearl.

"Folks, when you have to eat a shit sandwich, you're better off to take big bites."

That was in 1995 - five years later, the 70 year old company was acquired. The CEO was right, but he also steered the company into a safe harbor as his final duty. At the time, I was shocked to hear those words in a public speech, but they stuck with me, 15 years later.

The essence of good leadership in bad times is to make hard decisions that offer the best outcome over the long run, with the least pain in the short term. Reality in life is about accepting life as it comes at one and doing the best one can with what one has to work with at the time.

It's not all that hard to analyze what we all now face in regards to digital transitions and metropolitan broadband when one accepts reality. The reality we face is that all cities, all organizations, all communities will have to go through a Digital Transition sooner or later. In a sense, a Digital Transition, can be looked at as making the most of a necessary evil, along the lines of the Shit Sandwich analogy.

Having accepted Reality as what it is, we can start having the adult conversation about what a future based on digital tools connected with ubiquitous broadband would look like, and how we can get from here to there.

Optimal v. Best

Facing Reality is acknowledging that while we would all prefer the perfect, no-risk outcome, it is not attainable. Therefore, we have to look at what is attainable given the current set of constraints and position ourselves to find the best fit at the time.

Such a "rough order of magnitude" or "ROM" strategy accepts that there will be time after any decision to improve on the situation and then make subsequent decisions with more options at hand.

A ROM strategy assesses the situation and the set of options and compares the indicated outcomes with the default outcome, which is doing nothing and accepting the status quo.

If that assessment indicates that the situation is improved with one or more of the options, they can be weighed against each other and one option will be indicated to be the best solution at that time - even better than taking no action at all.

Based on the need for quality (and some situations carry grave risks if quality is not maintained), the decision-making process and line of reasoning offered in this brief suggest that a solution that is quick and cheap, most times, may be good enough to move forward.

For those times when quality is the standard, then one can choose to move forward quickly, accepting that it will cost more, OR one can choose to use time to one's advantage, saving money by going slowly and deliberately ahead.

Whichever of the three options chosen, this analysis suggests that moving forward in a time of rapid change is generally preferable to standing still, all other things being equal.

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