The Death of the Project Management Triangle
The Death of the Project Management Triangle
By Ben Snyder, CEO of Systemation
The theorists have won. The latest version of Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) has done away with the project triangle, often referred to as the triple constraint. For more than fifty years this simple model allowed people inside and outside the profession of project management to understand the high level dynamics involved in projects.
The project triangle represents the relationships between scope, time, and cost. Scope is the sum of all products and services to be provided. It includes all the work that must be performed to deliver the product or service (tasks and activities) at the negotiated grade (level of quality and amount of redundancy). Time is the duration that is needed to complete all the associated project work (calendar days, months, and years). Cost is the monetary value of the labor expended and all other direct charges that will be incurred during the project (travel, hardware, and software).
When the value of one side is changed, one or both of the other sides are almost always affected. Successfully managing projects requires an understanding of the dynamics of these relationships. When one side of the triangle is an accurate reflection of the demands of the other two sides, the project triangle is said to be harmonized. For example, a project with a scope of building a 5,000 sq. ft. home in two months at a cost of $40,000 is unrealistic; time does not accurately represent the demands of scope and cost. To harmonize the triangular relationship of this project, the cost of the home would have to be increased or its scope decreased, or both.
This straight forward concept has allowed numerous project managers, project sponsors, and team members to come together and work through project issues. PMI has replaced the project triangle with an infinite number of constraints. While the change is not wrong it provides no practical utility.
PMI may not recognize the project triangle anymore, but it is still a good thing to have in your tool belt.
Ben Snyder is the CEO of Systemation, (www.systemation.com), a project management, business analysis, and agile development training and consulting company that has been training professionals since 1959. Systemation is a results-driven training and consulting company that maximizes the project-related performance of individuals and organizations. Known for instilling highly practical, immediately usable processes and techniques, Systemation has proven to be an innovative agent of business transformation for many government entities and Fortune 2000 companies, including Verizon Wireless, Barclays Bank, Mattel, The Travelers Companies, Bridgestone, Amgen, Wellpoint and Whirlpool.
I couldn’t agree more! I had a blog post about this very topic recently. http://www.daleolsonconsulting.com/blog/2009/05/24/the-triple-constraint-is-gone/
I think that removing the triple constraint was a very wise move by the PMI. Although it was nice and novel and used in every boardroom I’ve ever been in, the triple constraint provided a skewed view on the actual constraints and impacts we need to deal with on our projects.
Shaun Dicker
http://shaundicker.tumblr.com
Triple constraint model is good for conceptialising the relationship between time, quality and money (i.e. resources). However, I do think that this model can be further refined to incorporate an evaluative component as a fourth dimension. For example, Michael Porter suggested that doing SWOT and PEST will provide an assessment of the company relative to its internal and external enviornment. But so what? Without knowing what this means in the context of business existence i.e. to generate income equal to or greater than its outgoings, the mere statement of position is not as useful. Hence, the competitive analysis that gives meaning to the relationship between company’s internal and external environments.
Consequently, PM Triangle really needs to morph into eitehr a square or a pentagon as a consequence of including variables/dimensions/components of the model than can tell us, relative to project environment, what the changes in three contstraints mean.
I could be wrong but the only reason the ‘triple constraint’ concept held for so many reasons is because it was easy to incorporate it into PowerPoint presentations. Ok seriously now, there’s no reason to hold-on to concepts that are blatantly incorrect. And the PMI has finally acknowledged this fact by abolishing it and recognizing that there’s more to project constraints than just time, cost and scope. Good on you PMI. :)
I applaud PMI for bringing more reality to the PMBOK by adding more constraints and leaving the door open for, and hope they continue that process.
One additional one not mentioned I can think of is “dependencies.”
The point is that is can differ by industry, company, department, and project and a careful eveluation needs to be done to identify the unique constraints (regardless of number) for your project.
I agree with Rick’s idea to add in dependencies as an additional factor. Given the Agile/Scrum frameworks I would also submit that “Technical Debit” related to the “Product” is also a worthy consideration.