PMcrunch

I just heard a discussion led by a Duke University economics professor (sorry, I didn’t get his name) who had some interesting points to make about things being for free or being for money. He draws some very interesting conclusions that might be helpful to many of us on our projects.

He started out with an example of cookies. He said take as many cookies as you want for free that we typically will exercise judgment and responsibility and limit the number of cookies that we take. First we may exercise responsibility and not want to overindulge and we may also exercise responsibility. in not wanting to take on too many calories. If on the other hand, we are told that there is a charge for the cookies, we tend to think much more in terms of a monetary value. of the cookies and will consume more or less depending upon the price of the cookies.

He then went on to give the example of pollution and assigning monetary value to pollution credits. which then can be consumed or traded. He says that an argument can be made that when there is no monetary value that at least many people will exercise value judgments and pollute less. If there is however a large monetary value placed upon the polluting then we will think more in terms of that monetary expenditure.. If however, there is a relatively small value put on the pollution, and then we may very well have the worst situation of all. In this situation the polluting is not free so we exercise far less judgment in our decisions about polluting but at the same time maybe willing to do it more freely because the cost is so low.

I have not really drawn any particular conclusions from this except that it’s an interesting idea and may have applicability to many of us on our projects.

John Reiling, PMP
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