Fish and chips at the Golden Union Fish Bar
WHEN it comes to project delivery it is said that the customer always wants it “fast, good and cheap”, but they can only have two.
A project can be delivered quickly and cheaply, but the quality will suffer. It can be shipped cheaply and to perfection, but it will take a long time. Or it can be supplied quickly and with quality, but this won’t come cheap.
The “fast, good and cheap” paradigm can be a helpful way to think about project delivery, but the problem is that it encourages blinkered thinking by leading management to focus on inputs (time, costs and scope) rather than considering what the customer might actually want.
Your author recently visited the Golden Union Fish Bar near Oxford Circus in London with Microsoft Test Engineer Brad Reaves, and discovered something remarkable.
The Golden Union Fish Bar serves fish and chips.
Fish and chips.
Simple, appealing and delicious.
The remarkable thing about the Golden Union Fish Bar is that fish and chips is pretty much all it serves.
The simplicity of the restaurant layout and the limited range of menu options is delightful because it makes the dining experience hassle free. No stressful decision about where to sit because every table is picture perfect and pretty much identical. No annoying battle to select a dish from an encyclopedic range of menu options because when you go to the Golden Union Fish Bar you order fish and chips.
The food is priced at a premium and you have to wait a short while for the food to be served, but the growing anticipation only makes the final arrival of an appealing dish even more delicious.
Before racing around to deliver your project as quickly and cheaply as possible, it may be worth stopping to think about your customers, and what they might want from you.