When we resumed testing, another instrument showed damage. Now we were both confused and in trouble.

Project scope drives project cost and schedule.

Focusing on speed encourage creative thinking on projects. A lot of our processes that we have, both procurement and post-award, are built on lack of trust. That's essentially what it is. When you hand somebody an 11-page specification rather than a 100-page document, however, you are sending a clear signal that you trust them to do the right thing. In general, we don't do that because we don't trust, or the system won't allow us to trust; I'm not sure which. But my own belief is that, as an individual project manager, you can go a long way in that direction by starting not with the notion that someone has to earn your trust, but starting with the presumption that they're trustworthy until proven otherwise.

Creating a realistic schedule for a complex project is mostly an art, requiring intuition, judgment, and knowledgeable guesswork.