[qznc]

Well, you could try insurance/hedging. Then you either accomplish X or get your money back.

The risk of losing time remains though. If you want to lower that, you need redundancy: Outsource the project multiple times. That also costs multiple times as much though and still all of them might fail.

[mcny]

> The risk of losing time remains though. If you want to lower that, you need redundancy: Outsource the project multiple times. That also costs multiple times as much though and still all of them might fail.

If the task is impossible or the requirements are insane, sure. You'll likely fail in all of those multiple times. It is likely though that given enough bids, Someone will find a loophole so they will be compliant to the letter of the requirements but not the spirit.

For example, you might say your software needs to run in a web browser and use standard/modern HTTP calls but you never specify it has to work on more than just windows so some vendor implemented the whole thing using xbap (silver light) and viola you can now use your stupid topaz signature input and your thermal check printers. But now the "website" works only on Windows.

But yeah if you give even a thousand different teams the task to create a time machine to go back in time, they'll all most likely fail.