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1 Project Management Triangle - Time, Cost and Quality - Iron Triangle

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Pricelda Villa-Borre
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Home / Project Management / Project Management Triangle

Project Management Triangle


The Project Triangle or Iron Triangle expresses the Triple
Constraint of time, cost and quality or scope that must be
managed in project delivery. Each constraint is connected
and moving one point of the triangle will impact the other
two points.
— stakeholdermap.com

One of the first project management concepts that I learned was


the Time, Cost, Quality Triangle. Also known as the Iron Triangle
or Triple Constraint. I was given the task of managing a
conference and I was trying to find a way to express a common
challenge.

 | What is the Iron Triangle? |


Common variations of the Project
Triangle | How to use the Iron
Triangle

The conference date was fixed and there simply wasn't enough
time to write, design and print the completed full-color training
materials by the start of the conference, thankfully the Project
triangle came to my rescue.

The Iron Triangle of time, cost and


scope or quality
In the mid 1980s Dr. Martin Barnes created the Triangle of
objectives. The triangle demonstrates that quality cost and time
are interrelated. Focussing or fixing one point of the triangle
impacts the other two points (Lock, 2007, p21).

In other words if one part of the triangle is fixed the other two
points have to move, so if quality is fixed, time and/or cost may
need to increase.

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In the case of the conference a trade off had to be made in quality


or cost to meet the fixed date. In the end the printing was
changed from color to black and white and drafts were sent to
the first day of the conference with final versions arriving on the
third day.

Dr. Barnes later updated the triangle to performance, cost and


time as he felt that quality implied little more than compliance
with specifications.

Dennis Lock points out that many more derivations of the triangle
have since been developed (2007, p22). My perception is that the
most often seen variation is to replace performance or quality
with scope. In my opinion this is a calculated attempt to insist
that compliance to specification is - as Barnes tried to avoid - all
that is required. This is perhaps partly the cause of the common
complaint that waterfall project management methods are
inflexible, fix requirements and are resistant to change.

Common variations of the project


triangle
This version places quality in the centre,
making a clear distinction between scope
and quality. Here scope is the deliverables
and specification, but quality has moved to
centre, so that any change to any side
affects quality (office.microsoft.com, 2014).
Kliem and Ludin modified the triangle of
objectives to show people at the centre.
They called this The Four Variables of
Project Success.

if people are not considered a crucial


element, the project will fail, even in
the presence of good plans,
organizational structure, and proper
controls (Kliem, Ludin and Robertson,
1997, p24).

Lock proposed a combined version of


Barnes's original with Kliem and Ludin's,
but replaced 'quality' with 'level of
specification'. Arguing that if quality is
defined as 'fit for purpose' it can never be
negotiable. 'Performance' or 'Level of
specification is more appropriate because
that can be negotiated (Lock, 2007, p22).

How to use the Iron triangle

Decide at the start of a project which version of the triangle you


will use and agree with the project sponsor which of the three or
four objectives are most important.

Assess all changes, risks and issues against the triangle and
weigh up your course of action against the impact on your critical
objective. For example if the key project constraint is cost, only
the most business critical change requests are likely to be
approved. However, if quality is the biggest goal time and cost
might move to accommodate enhancement requests.

Note on the history of the Triangle According to Andy Oppel


some claim that the concept of three interrelated objectives
comes from Hollywood where producers manage three
interrelated objectives: aspiration of a quality film, produced
quickly on small budget (2009).

Project triangle references


Office, 2014, The project triangle, [online] Available at:
https://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/project-help/the-project-
triangle-HA010351692.aspx [Accessed 19 November 2014]

Andy Oppel, 2009. Data Modeling: A Beginner's Guide by Oppel,


Andy (2009) Paperback , McGraw-Hill.

Ralph L. Kliem, Irwin S. Ludin, Ken L. Robertson, 1997. Project


Management Methodology: A Practical Guide for the Next
Millennium: A Practical Guide for the Next Millennium, New
York:CRC Press.

Dennis Lock, 2007. Project Management , 9th ed.


Aldershot:Gower Publishing Limited. Latest edition Project
Management from Amazon.

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