Scarcity in Design
Great interview of Fred Brooks in the August 2010 Wired magazine (sorry, no link at this time).
The critical thing about the design process is to identify your scarcest resource. Despite what you think that very often is not money. For example, in a NASA moon shot, money is abundant but lightness is scare; every ounce of weight requires tons of material below. On the design of a beach vacation home, the limitation may be your ocean-front footage. You have to make sure your whole team understands what the scarce resource you’re optimizing.
