FIST Values

Dan Ward wrote a thesis on values and how they contribute to project success.  His thesis is that success is correlated with a set of values he tags with the acronym F.I.S.T: Fast, Inexpensive, Simple and Tiny.

Dan works in defense where many projects span decades and yeild little value for taxpayers (beyond jobs in regional areas, maybe.)  His work argues against an embedded bias towards expensive, large complex projects with massive scope.

(You can read his thesis yourself, here.)

Ask yourself this: If you were your project's sponsor and you were given a choice across these values, which options would you chose?