Triangles of Doom
Cheap. Fast. Good. Pick two. That’s the classic project triangle. As best as I can tell its an immutable law of the universe. No matter how much you try, you can only control 2 points at any given time. At Ai (driven by Wertheimer) we incorporate these points into a statement of priority from the clients, called a Faceted Feature Analysis. (Link will take you to the full story). Different clients are sensitive to some points on the triangle more than others, so we move the project priorities around in order to accommodate them.
This triangle is a source of confusion, however. That’s because there is (or at least seems to be) more than one triangle in play. In fact there are three, making a triangle of triangles.
The second triangle is the Faceted Feature Analysis (FFA) triangle.
The mapping between the first two triangles is mind-bending, but legit. What we’re saying here is:
- If Cost is the most important factor to a client, then Business Value is paramount.
- If Time is the most important factor to a client, then Technical Ease (how easy it is to build) is paramount.
- If Quality is the most important factor, then User Value (or usability) is paramount.
The FFA triangle is about prioritization. It is implied by the classic project triangle, but it serves a somewhat different purpose. This is all about trying to figure out which features are the most (or least) important.
Which leads us to this triangle – the bad news triangle. This is the one that gets pulled out when hard decisions have to be made, the one that people most want to deny. (Deny it all you want – this is like the Law of Conservation of Energy at work here…). At a certain point, something has to give – it can be that the schedule might not happen exactly on the target date, or it might be that the budget might be a bit different than originally anticipated or that the features delivered might be a bit different than originally anticipated. Maybe this should be called the Honesty Triangle.
UPDATE: Some people (who didn’t bother to leave a comment) feel that the last paragraph is too negative, that it implies that projects always ride off the rails, and that drastic scope needs to be cut, or drastic schedule slippage must occur or that massive budget adjustments must be made. Sorry if you got that impression – that’s not what I’m trying to say.
The point is that there MUST be a flexible point on the triangle. The triangle is viewable through various perspectives, depending on the condition of the project, which can be influenced by many, many factors. No one wants to be in the Honesty Triangle, which is the point at which you must make hard decisions. And most of the time, you don’t have to be there. But, should you, for whatever reason, find yourself with a project where the schedule is slipping, then its time to look at the honesty triangle. Honesty hurts, remember.