Tag: consulting

On the iron triangle of project management


Everyone who works should be aware of the iron triangle of project management. In essence, it says:

  1. The quality of work is constrained by the project’s budget, deadlines and scope (features).
  2. The project manager can trade between constraints.
  3. Changes in one constraint necessitate changes in others to compensate or quality will suffer.

Another way of looking at it is with this formula:

  • Quality = (Time X Resources) / Scope

If the scope increases without increasing either the time it takes to get done or the resources to get it done, then quality will decrease.

I think about the iron triangle a lot as a consultant. Clients often want to fix the values for time and resources while increasing the scope and not decreasing the quality. Sometimes consultants will want to increase the time and resources on a project without increasing scope in order to provide higher quality. It’s a balancing act, keeping all four measures aligned such that everyone is happy.

Anyone who provides a product or service to a client or customer should be aware of the iron triangle. Work makes more sense once you are aware of it.

 

What should you do? Here’s a chart to guide you

I like this chart, found at substack TBM 16/52: Can Do vs. Should Do by John Cutler. I use a similar one when working with clients.

If you have a list of tasks you feel need doing, list them out and grade them on a scale of 1 to 3 (or 5 or 10). We grade them usually on a scale of Low, Medium and High. If you rank a task High for you Should do it and High for you Can do it, then that goes up in the top right corner of this chart (#3). Those are the tasks you want to do first.

See #1 and #2? The way we tackle them is by breaking them down and finding a part of them we can do. That part we move into the #3 section. There’s always some part of #1 and #2 you Can do, even if it involved asking someone for help with them.

Obviously those things you shouldn’t do (#9) should move off your list, no matter how capable you are of doing things. Likewise #6-#8 should be avoided, but sometimes we do #8 when we are blocked or tired (which is a form of blocked).

Anyway, a great chart. Check out the substack post for more insight on it.