What is the difference between a brand new 300k truck and a used 60k truck? What are the benefits and downsides of either solution? Is the new one worth the price difference?
I don’t know. But if you are in the trucking business, you probably do.
Now, imagine you have an IT project. Someone proposes a 300k solution, and someone else a 60k solution. Both solutions look similar. Is the expensive solution worth the price difference?
You don’t know. But I’m in the IT business. You assume that I probably do know.
Well, actually it’s harder. Trucks are a commodity item. Maybe driver satisfaction is hard to measure and quantify in business value units, but at least fuel consumption, engine performance, maintenance cost and reliability are pretty much clear. In IT nothing is clear. It’s not unusual for the 60k solution to be better than the 300k solution. To make things worse, IT people can’t be certain either. Too many things are unknown.
Sometimes IT people have better judgement because they have some technical understanding. But sometimes they let their favourites cloud their judgement, like a trucker who might have a personal love for Scania or Volvo.
When I say you should be prepared to spend five times more, I don’t mean to choose the 300k solution vs. the 60k solution. You should still evaluate both solutions and in the end choose with your gut feeling. What I mean is that, whichever solution you choose, you should consider it an experiment. Next year you may need to spend to undo it and setup another.
The five times more rule isn’t math; it’s a way of thinking.
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