If someone says "I want this project better, faster and cheaper" then if you are able to do that the implications are that you had a really inefficient system with obvious defects. Probably some form of government system.

If someone says "I want you to build a system or process that will allow future projects to be accomplished better, faster and cheaper" then that is a requirement and in fact the whole reason for the existence of IT.

I think you can only build for the future not for the current.

I'm 2 years off entering my 4th decade in IT and what I have noticed is that software development doesn't appear to be any faster than it ever has been. In some cases it appears to be slower. I think this boils down to people having a "job" in IT rather than a vocational calling.

I've also noticed that there are umpty millionty billionty frameworks to enable IT development to go faster. Once they are installed they do but every minute saved by using them seems to be lost by installing and configuring them....and in the case of some ORM implementations lost twice over by dealing with the consequences of using them.