The Importance of Miscalculating How Long a Project Will Take

People often overlook the importance of miscalculation in any worthwhile project.

“We should be able to complete this within a year.”
Four years later:
“We should be able to complete this within a few months.”

When I used to start with new product development teams, I’d sometimes ask, “How long did it take to build the Great Pyramids?”
No one ever knew.

Then I’d tell them, “Exactly. Nobody knows. And it doesn’t matter how long it took. They’re great.”

The point is simple: if you’re doing something that matters, there will come a time when how long it took—two months or two decades—will matter far less than whether it mattered … whether it’s great.

Or, as Shigeru Miyamoto - game director at Nintendo - put it, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”