Quote: The critical thing about the design process…

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Quoted by Matt on August 9 2010:

The critical thing about the design process is to identify your scarcest resource. Despite what you may think, that very often is not money. For example, in a NASA moon shot, money is abundant but lightness is scarce; every ounce of weight requires tons of material below. On the design of a beach vacation home, the limitation may be your ocean-front footage. You have to make sure your whole team understands what scarce resource you’re optimizing.

—

Fred Brooks, author of The Design of Design.

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6 comments so far

Rich S 09 Aug 10

For me it’s time. :)

Ryan theJenks 09 Aug 10

I love the part where he says,

You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you’re forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything you did was great, when in fact some parts may not have worked at all. Failure forces you to face reality.

;)

Sean Devine 09 Aug 10

This is the idea behind the Theory of Constraints management concept introduced by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt in his 1984 book, “The Goal”. I remember reading the book in my freshman year of college and I’m still amazed by how ugly the book’s cover is!

railmeat 09 Aug 10

That is a good quote. An important idea, expressed well. I guess I will have to buy and read the book after all.

Bob Reid 10 Aug 10

I’ve just started reading The Design of Design, by Fred Brooks, and have already tweeted several of his ideas. I plan to read it a second time with a highlighter. His genius shows through – there’s a lot to be learned from Mr. Brooks.