BRAIN BLOG

Example

The project triangle as a "pick any two" Venn diagram.

You are given the options of Fast, Good and Cheap, and told to pick any two. Here Fast refers to the time required to deliver the product, Good is the quality of the final product, and Cheap refers to the total cost of designing and building the product. This triangle reflects the fact that the three properties of a project are interrelated, and it is not possible to optimise all three – one will always suffer. In other words you have three options:

• Design something quickly and to a high standard, but then it will not be cheap.
• Design something quickly and cheaply, but it will not be of high quality.
• Design something with high quality and cheaply, but it will take a long time.

This constraint may apply to creative human activity, such as software, movies, books etc where quality is subjective. This is a false dichotomy when comparing technologies such as digital to analog in media formats.^{[citation needed]}

There are also numerous spinoffs to this triangle, the most common including:

• College: Work, Sleep, Play – Pick two.
• Men: Handsome, High-Earner, Faithful – Pick two.
• Women: Single, Sane, Sexy, Smart – Pick any three. (also called The four S's of dating)
• Operating System: Fast, Efficient, Stable - Choose two.
• Bicycle Parts: Strong, Light, Cheap - Pick any two.
• Opensource Software Development^[4]: Speed/Time, Inclusiveness/Openness, Quality
• Schedule, Scope, Resources – Pick two.

[edit]Project Management Triangle

The Project Management Triangle

Like any human undertaking, projects need to be performed and delivered under certain constraints. Traditionally, these constraints have been listed as "scope," "time," and "cost".^[5] These are also referred to as the "Project Management Triangle," where each side represents a constraint. One side of the triangle cannot be changed without affecting the others. A further refinement of the constraints separates product "quality" or "performance" from scope, and turns quality into a fourth constraint.

The time constraint refers to the amount of time available to complete a project. The cost constraint refers to the budgeted amount available for the project. The scope constraint refers to what must be done to produce the project's end result. These three constraints are often competing constraints: increased scope typically means increased time and increased cost, a tight time constraint could mean increased costs and reduced scope, and a tight budget could mean increased time and reduced scope.

The discipline of Project Management is about providing the tools and techniques that enable the project team (not just the project manager) to organize their work to meet these constraints.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_triangle