Better, Faster, Cheaper, Stupider?

How do we balance the demand for high quality engineering with economic pressures? The iconic demand is “better, faster, cheaper.” The ironic answer is, “Pick one,” but clients hate irony.

One example: Levee design requires precise and accurate calculations of how high flood elevations will rise. Estimating a design flood elevation wrong by more than a few inches can result in either excessive costs (miles of unnecessary levee height) or disaster (unexpected flooding).  Given the adverse consequences of even small errors, my organization spent lots of time and effort making sure our crest estimates were both accurate and precise.

Sometimes our resolve to generate the most accurate results created conflict. I knew an engineer who agonized over his calculations, demanding more and better information until his clients became enraged with schedule delays. I sympathized with him. None of us wanted to be the one who under-designed a levee that killed someone.

A wakeup call from a different world came when a U.S. Army captain called us and asked how high the Euphrates River would get at a certain location over the next 48 hours. Stunned, one of my colleagues told him that it would take at least two weeks to make those calculations. He replied, “Sir, I’ve got 48 hours to put a ribbon bridge across this river before the enemy arrives and starts shooting. Any answer after 24 hours is useless.”

That captain taught us a valuable lesson in balancing speed versus accuracy in engineering results. He didn’t care if we were off by several feet. He just needed it fast.

It isn’t just the battlefield where quality versus time judgments are important. Sometimes a quick, approximate answer is worth much more than a deliberate, carefully worked out answer. Every project, every client has different needs and engineers must find the right balance between speed, cost, and quality for each one.

Quality is usually defined as fitness for intended use – a solution appropriate to the need with available resources. That’s the correct answer to “better, faster, cheaper” demands. How do we get there?

•      Define the objective clearly. Ask the client about constraints on time, cost, and others.

•      Estimate time and cost as a function of needed quality of results.

•      Present estimates and limitations to client. Be prepared to negotiate.

•      Prepare final estimates with explicitly written objective, constraints, and limitations (including uncertainty bounds).

Luckily for Army captain, I had wonderful coworkers who understood his plight and got him the information he needed, when he needed it. They got ‘er done.

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