Imagine you were going to Mars. (There is some current debate in the United States about a new goal for the space program, to go to Mars and perhaps place a permanent settlement there.)
Now imagine you are one of the potential astronauts. You are in a first stage promotional meeting and the director of NASA says: “we’re not going to spend a lot of time planning; but we’ll make it up with close contact during the trip. This is pretty big so we won’t have time for people to review and talk about all of the components. Don’t worry though; we have some great people working on this. Some of the traditional experts for this sort of thing may not be involved; but, that’s ok, we’re sure we won’t need them. We’re pretty sure it will all fit together and there won’t be any negative consequences. This is exciting. It’s going to be great!”
Now the director looks at all the astronauts and asks: “So who will be the first to go to Mars?” Would you volunteer?
In the case of a trip to Mars, hopefully NASA would not need to make such a choice, but in other situations this choice is presented. Most of the time it is a red herring. A false argument. More treatment does not always mean better outcomes and at a certain point, it never means better outcomes. If though, there really had to be a choice, I would always choose thorough (not over) planning, even if it meant just a little less in the way of services or project time.
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