[Preparation | planning | process] matters.

An interesting post from codebetter.com started off with a great intro:

“Think about this for a minute, say your Noah, walking down the street, minding your own business, and a big voice booms out “Noah, I want you to build an Ark. When can you ship?” Here’s the proper response — “Right, what’s an Ark?” When the big voice says “it shall be 200 cubits by 40 cubits by 60 cubits” you respond with “Right, what’s a cubit?” And so on and so forth. The point being that you cannot give an accurate estimate without a detailed understanding of the tasks involved to carry out the development work.”

It reminded me of another project management-type quote, this time from Web Design on a Shoestring:

“This bloat often goes unnoticed in big-budget sites. Larger budgets afford web professionals more opportunity for indecision and lack of direction. An unclear path leads to a major eleventh-hour revision; labor is wasted on last-minute fixes for problems that could have been avoided through better planning.”

And the follow-up comment by Wurkit.com:

“I love the Abe Lincoln approach: If you have eight hours to chop a tree, spend 6 hours sharpening your axe. That doesn’t mean the plan needs to be complicated or perfect and can’t be changed at any time, but a lot more work gets done when you’re aware and confident you’re going in the right direction.”