Give me an estimate

Why do we so easily accept a culture of over-runs and delays?

I was asking myself this question as I glanced at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on Sunday.

Of course, this particular event has been hit hard by its own unique mixture of bad luck (with weather), old-fashioned incompetence and infrastructural issues. But it is perhaps wise not to get too smug and Western-centric about this. There are plenty of big-ticket developments in the UK, for example, that have been hit with costly over-runs and delays.

But it also goes deeper into our culture. Too often we accept that things will be late and too many dates and times are provisional - ‘estimate’ society gone mad. This is particularly strange for me as the world of publishing has changed dramatically in the 10 years or so that I have worked in it. Increasingly, I’m grappling with online deadlines of 30 minutes or so (less in many cases) as the speed of the internet picks up. When I began the worst deadlines I had to cope with were daily, weekly or, often, monthly.

As technology speeds up society we are still seemingly lumbered with bureaucracies and management cultures that work in a much slower time-frame.

I estimate that it will take another 20 years to catch up. Maybe 25.

Lyndon White
Editor, Processingtalk

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