The Project Management Triangle
The project management triangle is an illustration that demonstrates the “triple constraint” of project management. Each side of the triangle is labelled with an aspect of a managed project. One side of the triangle represents the “cost” of the project. The second side represents “time” and the remaining side represents “scope.” Project managers often use the illustration of the project management triangle to demonstrate to clients that if one of the triangle’s attributes (cost, time or scope) changes, the other sides of the triangle are affected as well. For example, if the scope of the project is increased, then the time and cost aspects are extended.
When a project is estimated, the three aspects of the project management triangle are determined and presented to the client in the form of a proposal. The project is approved based on the formula of time, scope and cost required to accomplish the project goals. If one of the aspects of the project management triangle is altered, the estimate is no longer accurate. For example, if the client finds that they cannot cover the cost of the estimated project, the scope must change. As a result, the time factor will change as well.
In practise, scope is the aspect of the project management triangle that is most likely to change, particularly for software development projects. As clients see potential in a developing software project, they may begin to see value in new features and functionality not previously conceptualised for the application. Each feature that is added to an application in development increases the scope for the project. When scope increases, so do the time and cost aspects of the project. Unfortunately, even though the project triangle is relatively easy to explain to clients, the aspects of the triangle are challenging to enforce in practise.
Project management software is essential for effective management of a project, including time, scope and cost. Project management software provides an automated way to constrain changes to time and cost once scope is defined. Scope is determined when the project is first created in the project management application.
If additional features are added to the project’s scope, project management software basically forces changes to the time and cost of the project as well. The way the application accomplishes this goal is by creating timeline estimates based on time estimates of each project task.The number of tasks that may be accomplished in a given work day is determined by the number of project resources. The number of resources, which are a project cost, may be increased, which will in turn increase the number of tasks that may be accomplished in a given day. Once each resource is added to the project, and each task is defined for each resource, the project timeline is generated.
One reason that a project management application is so important for tracking projects is that software generally does not allow the user to simply make changes to the timeline.Timeline changes must be made by changing the number of resources and/or the number of project tasks. These changes are then reflected in an adjusted timeline. Project management software assists the project manager in keeping the triple constraint of a project under strict control and avoiding the project manager’s enemy, “scope creep.”
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Posted in Business Management, Project Management | 
Tags: Project Management, Project Management Triangle