(Note: the analysis below of floor plate size vs construction speed is incorrect due to autocorrelation effects. For a correct analysis, see the subsequent post here) It’s good to be able to build things quickly. The faster you build something, the quicker the benefits from it accrue, making it more valuable. Additionally, you can reallocate your resources to another project, letting you build more things overall. Building things faster also generally means building them cheaper. If you’re building slowly, you’re probably building inefficiently, spending more time and effort than is really required. It’s also hard to avoid accumulating costs as a project drags on: you end up with more financing costs, more project status meetings, more time spent getting people up to speed as the team working on the project changes. And the longer a project takes, the more chances there are for something to go horribly wrong. Bent Flyvbjerg, who has spent his career studying megaprojects (projects...