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layout: post title: Project Management Triple Constraint date: 2018-04-04 —

Is a model of the constraints of project management. While its origins are unclear, it has been used since at least the 1950s. It contends that:

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

Cost: All projects have a finite budget; the customer is willing to spend a certain amount of money for delivery of a new product or service. If you reduce the project’s cost, you will either have to reduce its scope or increase its time.
Time (Schedule): As the saying goes, ‘time is money’, a commodity that slips away too easily. Projects have a deadline date for delivery. When you reduce the project’s time, you will either have to increase its cost or reduce its scope.
Many projects fail on this constraint because the scope of the project is either not fully defined or understood from the start. When you increase a project’s scope, you will either have to increase its cost or time. Once a customer asks you to complete a project, the person will state what is important; for example, the project must cost no more than £50k, be delivered by a particular date, or contain certain features.

Scope is cut, quality is reduced, and the schedule is pushed back so that cheaper resources can be found. The most significant constraint, in this case, is the cost (the money the company is willing to spend).
Costs increase as more people are added to meet the new deadline. Some features of the product are removed and put into a phase two release to reduce delivery time and meet the new launch date. The most significant constraint, in this case, is time (project schedule).
The budget and schedule increase as a result of pushing up the final delivery date. More people are added to minimize disruption to the project schedule, thereby increasing the project’s overall cost. The most significant constraint, in this case, is scope (features of the product).