One of our favourite project management proverbs goes like this: when executing a project, you can choose only two out of the following three outcomes: Cheap, Fast, or Good.

In other words, a project can be cheap and fast, but it will not be good (not good should never be an option - more on this later). It can be fast and good, but not cheap. Or it can be good and cheap, but not fast.

This simple rule of thumb seems to run universally across all industries. It goes without saying that it would be impossible to walk up to a restaurant counter and order the fanciest meal in town, have it served up to you in under three minutes, and then savor your spread in a high-end, refined dining environment while paying bottom-dollar for the full experience. When it comes to designing and building structures, which involve exponentially more resources to put together than a dish of food, the odds of winning the cheap-fast-good trifecta lean even more toward the impossible.

Despite the above, hopes frequently run high - and expectations even often dictate - that all three outcomes can, will, and should simultaneously materialize on a construction project. Millennia of human experience with construction projects points to a different reality.

Here’s a mental exercise. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine a building project of just about any scale. It can be a renovation or a full ground-up building. Begin by visualizing all the materials that might come together to make the project a physical, completed whole: concrete, wood, steel, glass, wires, ducts, machines, insulation, and a book full of others. Next think about the multitudes of tradespeople that will arrive on site, their tools and machinery, and how these highly skilled operatives will put the whole building puzzle together, piece by piece, screw by screw, and in near-perfect order and sequence. Consider that those teams of builders rely on pages upon pages of in-depth instructions: drawings and specifications prepared and validated by countless non-builders spread across different professions and organizations: architects, interior designers, engineers, technologists, landscape architects, and potentially other specialist consultants like quantity surveyors, acoustic consultants, lighting consultants, and product engineers. And of course don’t forget to think about the involvement of the various municipal authorities making their contributions: plan examiners, zoning officers, city planners, fire department officials, water and waste staff, and countless others involved in the off-site and on-site review of buildings and their improved surroundings. Once the whole coordinated picture is visualized from beginning to end at the right level of detail, the following begins to materialize: building anything is an accomplishment worth celebrating!

Great. So what are my options as a client/owner?


1. Fast and Cheap: danger - sacrificing ‘good’ should be a no-go.

As mentioned above, sacrificing ‘good’ should never be an explicit project goal. In a worst-case scenario, missing, or ‘getting around’ minimum building standards can lead to a building failure which could impact human health and safety. Not coincidentally, most flavours of flat-out anguish (for owner, consultant, builder, and building occupant) have a way of materializing more frequently on projects that simultaneously prioritize speed and savings at the expense of quality.

2. Fast and Good: never cheap, and not necessarily guaranteed.

Achieving a well-designed, well-built structure over a compressed time frame is possible, but is generally expensive - and certainly not guaranteed, even when extra dollars are thrown into the mix. Designing a building is akin to solving a complex puzzle, and as with puzzle-solving, the element of time expands relative to complexity. Achieving quality and speed is only possible when the client, designer, and builder all simultaneously assign their very best talent - and more talent than usual - to the job, without allowing the the too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen paradigm to sabotage the whole enterprise. As we’re all aware, as things get rushed, the probability of error increases. There are certainly ways to achieve the fast/good combo, but these will not be cheap, and will require an exceptional alignment of talent, organization, and, in some cases, luck, to pull off.

And the winner is…


3. Good and Cheap: plan ahead. and cheap = reasonable.

This is the combo to aim for on just about every project. It should be prefaced that in the good/cheap duo, cheap really means ‘reasonable,’ and not unnecessarily, surprisingly, or wastefully expensive. In most scenarios, if you want something executed well, it should not be rushed. By planning ahead, and allowing for realistic timelines when putting together a project’s schedule, many costly surprises can be avoided.

Time must be realistically estimated for each of these project ‘sub-chapters’:

• Engaging an Architect

• Developing the project’s program of requirements

• Finding land or space

• Negotiating/purchasing/leasing land or space

• Obtaining financing

• Preliminary (schematic) design

• Preliminary approvals (landlord, outside licensing agency…)

• Detailed design (design development, contract documents)

• Tendering/bidding out the project

• Negotiating with bidder(s)

• Setting up a construction contract

• Obtaining municipal approvals (i.e. building permits, zoning approvals)

• Obtaining landlord or licensing authority approvals

• Building the project

• Obtaining final approvals (occupancy permits, licenses)

Thoughtfully allocating realistic timelines for each of the above items, and understanding how each item’s timeline can impact the others primes a project for success. As does keeping ‘Engaging an Architect’ at the top of the list.