VALUE FOR MONEY

Another ice-breaker I sometimes use works like this …

I put a picture of Apollo 11 on the screen and say: “When NASA set up the Apollo programme they realised that normal ballpoint pens do not work upside down or in zero gravity. So they set up a project to develop a ‘space pen’. And they came up with this …” [produce official NASA space pen] “… which, adjusted to today’s values, cost $1.5bn to perfect. The Soviets used … a pencil” [produce pencil] “My question to you is: is this system to be a space pen or a pencil?” Invariably someone will say: “can we have the space pen for the cost of the pencil?” and you are off on your discussion of a key factor for every  project – value for money.