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Free Market PM: Unfixing Prices
David Schmaltz is a project manager in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Most sponsors oversee projects as fixed expenses. Project managers, in turn, closely track costs, seeking a survivable margin and “ticketing” changes to justify increases. Neither side seems satisfied with the historical results. So what is the value of your project? What’s a fair price to pay? Whether you consider that price tag an expense or an investment makes a real difference.
Part I of this series introduced the concept of Free Market Project Management, comparing centrally planned economies with centrally planned projects and finding similar patterns. Part II, “Creating Currency,” proposed the creation of a currency that holds real value for a project's “economy.” This article, Part III, compares price fixing with estimating, and considers a free market technique for unfixing the price of projects.
The newspapers today complain about the unfair price of petroleum. One of my senators proposes fixing this problem by fixing the price at an affordable level. Oil companies — which have always been just too easy to hate — report record profits, but complain that setting artificially low prices will discourage exploration and will ultimately require higher government subsidies.
Projects today wrestle with similar difficulties. Most organizations sponsoring projects believe they are spending too much for far too little. The …
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