If you have worked around software and IT long enough, no doubt you have seen first hand how snap judgments become laugh-out-loud project disasters … provided it did not happen to you!  Remember this pearl of IT project management wisdom?  “Good, fast, and cheap.  You pick two and I define the third.” 
 
Seems like we all have material for a Dilbert™ comic strip or two … or three.
 
Here’s our Top 10 list of doozies.  They are entertaining, to be sure, but they are also an informal guide to better vendor selection and project management. 
 
1.    We don’t need QA on this project – the users will find anything we miss.
2.    This is a rapid development project – we’ll figure out the requirements as we go.
3.    My IT budgets don’t need contingency reserves – we know what we are doing.
4.    Customer meetings during the project waste time – we have deadlines to hit!
5.    This prototype looks good enough – push it to production.
6.    All features of our new software product are a “top priority”.
7.    From the vendor you do not want to hire: Cut the project bid by 25%, just to make sure we win.
8.    Always choose the cheapest bid – it’s just programming, right?
9.    We’ll save time and money if we just work in the production environment.
10.   Our favorite: I don’t pay programmers to think – I pay them to write code.
 
Got a doozie you care to share?  Please tell us about it.  Maybe we’ll post it!