Possibly something that many people are well aware of, but also something that very few clients seem to want to take any notice of – but this little gem should be pinned on the wall every office in the advertising, marketing and business worlds.

It was quite few years ago that a certain Peter Cheeseman, arguably one of the best Studio Managers I can remember, doodled this on a serviette in the Black Lion & French Horn pub in London with a "have you seen this?" and it seemed that years of frustration and lip-biting conversations with clients suddenly made complete sense.

So here we go. The Production Triangle. Very simple.

Draw a triangle (easy enough) and on each point draw these 3 words.

GOOD

QUICK

CHEAP

These are the three most important factors that any client (indeed any purchaser of anything) looks for and the big problem is that far too many clients expect all three, and 99.9% of the time that little feat is absolutely impossible.

You can have any one of them. You can even have two of them. But you can never have all three because, quite simply, they work against each other.

You can have GOOD and QUICK, but you'd better get your cheque book out.

You can have QUICK and CHEAP, but don't expect anything that will win awards or is worth pinning proudly on the wall in your boardroom.

You can have GOOD and CHEAP, as long as you haven't got any deadlines looming.

And, importantly, the more you pull any one of those three words in one direction, the other TWO will become even weaker, so if you want something really, really, GOOD then don't expect it tomorrow and do expect a hefty bill.

Naturally, like all things in life, there are exceptions – but in this case they are as rare as a Spurs win at Old Trafford.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

From the 'never to be published' book, ADVERTISING AD-ONS (2004)