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You can if you know what you are doing. We do it in the private sector everyday. I’ve been in charge of million dollar projects that, with simple planning, moved quickly, efficiently and cost effectively.

1. First, a million dollar project isn't necessarily a big deal. If you are, say, installing a new tape backup system, the tape library (capacity 1,200 tapes and one dozen high speed drives) might be $800,000. Add $50,000 for the humans setting it up, and there are a number of ways the remaining $150,000 could be spent (servers, utility software, etc.) without the project being terribly complex. Very little of the spending is discretionary.

2. You have to include the planning time in the speed of your project. I suspect you got everyone on the same page before you even got to Gate Zero. You had the luxury of setting everything up, and putting it in motion, as a good project manager should. You did NOT whip up execution in 24 hours before expending your first resources.

3. That level of planning cannot be done ahead of time when you don't know what will be damaged/destroyed and who will be displaced.

4. Of course, NY being a government enterprise, there is plenty of room for intrigue and malfeasance. Even if the government subcontracted the whole thing to a Halliburton type operation, the risk of misbehaviour arises from government regulations and also from being an extra step removed from regular market mechanisms (performance being only one criterion among many that determines payment). It would be about as clean and efficient as military procurement.