Dear Bob ... I couldn't agree more with your article ["You get what you pay for,", Keep the Joint Running, 5/9/2005]. I managed a small development team for several years. We delivered nearly all of our projects on time, but always with a focus on quality. I always endorded the approach to my team that I'd rather have it done right and late then on time and broken. My customer Dear Bob …I couldn’t agree more with your article [“You get what you pay for,”, Keep the Joint Running, 5/9/2005]. I managed a small development team for several years. We delivered nearly all of our projects on time, but always with a focus on quality. I always endorded the approach to my team that I’d rather have it done right and late then on time and broken. My customers were grateful, but Management would give a nice pat on the head and say “good job”. Within the same organization, large, high visibility projects that were always struggling to stay on schedule and rarely delivered a high quality product, resulted in overwhelming recognition and reward for those teams that worked around the clock for months to deliver something – anything, just as long as it was on time. Management talked a good game of “on time, on budget, with minimal disruption to the client”, but it was clear that “on time” took precedence. That’s what was rewarded and that’s what was delivered consistently. The same can not be said for “minimal disruption to the client”, which by the way is a far cry from a satisfied, or better yet, delighted customer. – Larry HughesDear Larry …Part of what your e-mail highlighted for me is the importance of establishing, during the project launch, which is most important: Budget, schedule, scope (preserving the feature set), excellence (innovative thinking and design), or quality (minimizing the defect rate). It might be that for the project teams you’re describing, schedule was at the top of the list, followed closely by budget, where in yours, excellence and quality were at the top of the list. More likely, the question was never asked formally and each project manager made his/her own decision about it. You clearly value the quality of your work product (really, the excellence and quality of it if you allow the distinction I made). That’s admirable; I presume you made sure the business sponsor on your projects agreed with those priorities. It also sounds like your projects were never out of control, even if you consciously changed the schedule based on those priorities.From my perspective, what matters most is that everyone has the same priorities. Otherwise, all that happens are the dysfunctional arguments that result from the arguers arguing from different, unstated premises.– Bob ——– Technology Industry