Healthcare, You Are A Creep

Healthcare, you’re a creep.
You’re a weirdo.
What the hell are we doing here?
Our project doesn’t belong here.
Was Radiohead writing about healthcare scope creep? We think yes.
The key triangle in project management sets out to depict and demonstrate the constraints of a project: time, cost, and scope. The holy trinity of constraints is just as good as cooking with celery, carrots, and onions.
In college one of my favorite professors had two messages on his door:

1. There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary and those who do not.
2. On time, correct, and on budget – you can only have two.

Time and cost are self-explanatory but when it comes to scope, because we as consultants are in the business of keeping our clients happy, we are sometimes at war with ourselves. Small organizations, such as Advice during its infancy always want to say yes and figure out a way to work a little harder, cut costs a little more and deliver just a little earlier – because we can. There is a reason the larger companies typically have the leading “No” or “Okay, it will cost you” kind of attitude; it is because it makes sense and they can.