My metric for projects is that if I'm not returning near-term value at least double my billing rate, it's probably not worth doing. If you are, the difference

My metric for projects is that if I'm not returning near-term value at least double my billing rate, it's probably not worth doing. If you are, the difference between 2.2x, double, and 1.8x is pretty negligible - non zero, for sure, but not worth the additional 20% effort to minimize variance. If you aren't, as he says, no amount of diligence will fix it, because it's simply the wrong project. It's the classic penny-wise pound-foolish. So by my conclusion, many of the 'project management' activities that people do are at best wasteful or indeed actively harmful.