It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished.
By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, the people doing the work have lost track of the questions.
Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds.
People working in the private sector should try to save money. There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again.
Law Number XXXIX: Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of the year, in either direction.
Law Number XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man.
Law Number XXIX: Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade.
Law Number XXVIII: It is better to be the reorganizer than the reorganizee.
We believe in the wisdom once expressed by the hockey star Wayne Gretzky, who explained his success by saying, ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’
Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread.
If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all the managers would fly off.
The best way to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear is to begin with a silk sow. The same is true of money.
Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters.
A billion saved is a billion earned.
Decreased business base increases overhead. So does increased business base.
It’s easy to get a loan unless you need it.
Most projects start out slowly – and then sort of taper off.
The most unsuccessful three years in the education of cost estimators appears to be fifth-grade arithmetic.
The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed randomly.
A recent government publication on the marketing of cabbage contains, according to one report, 26,941 words. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Gettysburg Address contains a mere 279 words while the Lord’s Prayer comprises but 67.
Law Number XXXVI: The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea.