Project Management Primer #2 - Scope Triangle

Called the ‘Scope Triangle’ or the ‘Quality Triangle’ this shows the trade-offs inherent in any project. The triangle illustrates the relationship between three primary forces in a project.

Time is the available time to deliver the project, cost represents the amount of money or resources available and quality represents the “fit-to-purpose” that the project must achieve to be a success.

The normal situation is that one of these factors is fixed and the other two will vary in inverse proportion to each other. For example “Time” is often fixed and the “Quality” of the end product will depend on the “Cost” or resources available. Similarly if you are working to a fixed level of “Quality” then the “Cost” of the project will largely be dependent upon the “Time” available (if you have longer you can do it with fewer people)

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A phenomenon known as “scope creep” can be linked to the triangle too. Scope creep is the almost unstoppable tendency a project has to accumulate new functionality. Some scope creep is inevitable since, early on your project will be poorly defined and will need to evolve. A large amount of scope creep however can be disastrous.

When the scope starts to creep, new functionality must be added to cover the increased scope. This is represented by the quality arm of the triangle, representing the ability of the ‘product’ to fulfil users’ requirements. More requirements fulfilled = a better quality product.

In this situation you have three options:

1. Add time – delay the project to give you more time to add the functionality

2. Add cost – recruit, hire or acquire more people to do the extra work

3. Cut quality – trade off some non-essential requirements for the new requirements

If the art of management lies in making decisions, then the art of project management lies in making decisions quickly!

When faced with scope creep you cannot ignore it. You need to tackle it in one of the ways described above (more later) and the sooner the better. Delaying raises the risk of your project failing.

A poor project manager will see the scope triangle as a strait-jacket by which their project is irrevocably constrained. A better project manager will make better use of one or more of the axes and will shift the emphasis in the project to one of the other axes. The best project managers will juggle all three like hot potatoes and will make decisions every day which effectively trade-off time versus quality versus resources.

More Tutorials:

• 10 Truths for Successful Project Management

• Scope Triangle

• Critical Path

• The Mythical Man Month

• Defining the Project Scope

• Scope, Visions and Goals

• Using Project Goals to Filter Requirements

• Difference between a Business Case and Project Proposal?

• Return on Investment

• Requirements Specifications

Other Project Management Templates

Here are some Project Management templates you can get on our partner's site.

	The Change Management Kit provides the documentation required to control changes to the scope, deliverables and resources within the project. The Change Request template allows staff to raise a change request within the project.
	The Project Planning Kit provides you with all of the project management templates, documents and forms required to plan a project by helping you to schedule time, cost and resources.
	The Quality Management Kit includes a suite of templates used to assure and control the quality of deliverables within a project.
	Project Initiation Kit Start a new project by documenting a business case, undertaking a feasibility study, defining the project scope, recruiting key staff and locating them within a project office.
	Project Execution Kit Manage time, cost, quality, change, risks and issues during the execution of your project, as well as supplier procurement and customer acceptance.
	Project Closure Kit Helps close your project by handing over deliverables and documentation to the customer, terminating supplier contracts and releasing resources back to the business.