One Result

Eternal Truths of Project Management

I recently attended a brilliant seminar as a refresher on Project Management. If you are at all interested in getting a good grounding in the subject, I would take a look. I particularly liked their take on the building blocks of project management.

There are many different approaches to project management, some of which you may be familiar with: PRINCE2 (the project management system formally known as PRINCE), Scrum, Agile and Waterfall to name just a few. PRINCE2 is the mainstay of the Public Sector and Governmental Bodies, while Scrum is a great process for software development.

However, the fundamentals of a project never change. My favourite way of looking at this is the Time, Cost, Quality Triangle:

Pinning down the client’s key goals in relation to these areas is absolutely essential for the planning of a project- so it is essential for the whole project. In some cases, the priorities are going to be clear cut- for example- quality comes to the forefront when issues of health and safety are at stake. At One Result, our clients often prioritise quality because reputation is important to them. If the project needs to be done within a tight budget, you need to make sure resources are allocated to the most important areas, in the most cost-effective way.

The thing is, once the priorities are decided, the course is set and work gets underway. If later in the project, it is decided that the finish line needs to be brought forward, for example, this has to be accomplished by compromising on other aspects of the triangle. One can either invest more, or reduce the quality of the output, in order to balance the new time constraints.

This isn’t the end of the story, though, because the Time-Cost-Quality Triangle is really a tetrahedron . The fourth point on the triangle is reserved for “scope”. If unplanned additions come into the project, which really do need to be made (the infamous “scope creep”) this can be achieved only by altering the original project ambition. More often than not, this means reducing the breadth of achievement for the project, but delivering value, and the highest quality, on the areas that are covered.

Food for thought, and a very helpful thing to keep in mind at brainstorms and briefings…