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"Cheap" == billable time * per-worker capital and support, not elapsed time.

Obviously, if a given workforce on a time-based compensation consumes more billable time units, they will cost more. That isn't the general case envisioned by the GFC triad, but rather that additional resources (bodies, brains, greater talent, tools, extended workdays or weeks) be applied. Classically, The Mythical Man Month. Accrued technical debt is another (often hidden) cost.

Good / Fast / Cheap is a possibility / optimisation frontier. When you are at the frontier, you cannot optimise any one third factor without sacrificing one of the other two.

An obvious countertactic in negotiation is to argue that the task is not yet at the frontier / optimum. In practice, this may be true, though the frontier may still lie far closer than such tacticians generally seem to posit.



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