The best things in life are free! But is anything really free? Is there any such thing as a free lunch? Only last year I read the origins of that saying - "no such thing as a free lunch". I read it in a fascinating book called "Free - the Future of a Radical Price" - the book was authored by Chris Anderson - he of Wired and Long Tail fame. As an aside I did write an interesting series of blog postings on the Long Tail of SharePoint.  Back to the free lunch ... the following extract is from the wikipedia free lunch topic.

The phrase free lunch, in U. S. literature from about 1870 to 1920, refers to a tradition once common in saloons in many places in the United States. These establishments included a "free" lunch, varying from rudimentary to quite elaborate, with the purchase of at least one drink. These free lunches were typically worth far more than the price of a single drink.[1] The saloon-keeper relied on the expectation that most customers would buy more than one drink, and that the practice would build patronage for other times of day. Free food or drink is sometimes supplied in contemporary times, often by gambling establishments such as casinos. The saying "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch", often abbreviated to TANSTAAFL, refers to this custom, meaning that things which appear to be free are always paid for in some way.

I guess you can get most free things if you invest somewhat. So while not free - maybe inexpensive! "I guess it depends on the investment", I hear you say! Now you are saying - "what is this guy on about? - will he just get to the point"!

I believe one of the contributions we at BrightWork make to every customer we meet is that we give them free advice on Project Management. We explain that Project Management is a harder nut to crack that they give it credit for - so why not be realistic about what is achievable in Month 1. We say that it is better to continuously improve rather then to delay perfection. We use the "line" as our starting point for this discussion.

In simple terms we often see an evolution from left to right in terms of the amounts of management needed. Less on the left – more on the right. We also see that in all cases a combination is needed – not just one point. So organizations have projects on many (not just one) point of the line.

Anyway - what brought all this to mind. We did a free (!) webcast on Wednesday of this week that was rated very highly and I was wondering why! What made this webcast better than the one from the week before. Sure it looked at SharePoint 2010 and Project 2010 - and they are really cool. But on reflection I believe it was the explanation of the line and the explanation of how this allows you to plan for the gradual introduction of really strong collaborative project management practices, that made this webcast so pragmatic and appealing. We broke the deployment of Project Management on SharePoint into 4 stages. Please do see the webcast to judge for yourself! (Note - the webcast will be posted to this page on Monday morning Nov 1st).