I started skimming James P. Carse’s treatise Finite and Infinite Games the other week and a thought jumped out at me:
An RFP is a finite game—played with the infinite game of our business.
Rather than attempt my own summary of this distinction between finite and infinite games, I’ll let Carse explain:
There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. Finite games are those instrumental activities – from sports to politics to wars – in which the participants obey rules, recognize boundaries and announce winners and losers. The infinite game – there is only one – includes any authentic interaction, from touching to culture, that changes rules, plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game.
The RFP process counts as a finite game, in Carse’s framework. There are rules to an RFP (deadlines and required materials). There are clear boundaries (other projects are not involved). There are winners and losers (one team gets the project, the others do not).
The business of the A/E/C industry as a whole, though, is an infinite game. People want to design, to engineer, to build, to make (and remake) buildings and spaces. There is no “winning” in this sense.
But you can win a pursuit.
Taylor Coe 