Key Players in a Project Organization

Determining and Managing Trade-Offs between Key Project of Time,

Cost and Quality

It has been given many names – the Project Management Triangle,

Iron Triangle and Project Triangle – which should give you an idea of how
important the Triple Constraint is when managing a project. If you’re managing
a project, then you’re working with the Triple Constraint.

Therefore, it can be easily argued that the Triple Constraint might be the single
most important concept in the history of project management. The genius who
invented this model is on par with the person who first came up with the wheel.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of hyperbole, but in the world of project management
the Triple Constraint is like the invention of the wheel. When used in
combination with effective project management software, it can give you the
ability to drive your projects to success.

o, what is the Triple Constraint? That’s easy, it’s a model of the constraints
inherent in managing a project. Those constraints are threefold:

1. Cost: The financial constraints of a project, also known as the project budget

2. Scope: The tasks required to fulfill the project’s goals

3. Time: The schedule for the project to reach completion

Basically, the Triple Constraint states that the success of the project is impacted
by its budget, deadlines and features. As a manager of that project, you can
trade between these three constraints; however, changing the constraints of
one means that the other two will suffer to some extent.

While it’s true that the Triple Constraint is an important part of any successful
project, it doesn’t determine success. Projects are made from many parts, more
than the three, albeit major ones, that make up the Triple
Constraint. Sometimes you can’t play around with the Triple Constraint, but
those three factors are always at play in the project.

Why Is the Triple Constraint Important?

Think of the Triple Constraint as the boundaries in which you can work. Just as
restrictions enhance creativity, the Triple Constraint provides a framework that
everyone in the project can agree on. These metrics drive the project forward
while allowing for adjustments as needed when issues arise.
Managing a project is often a series of trade-offs and compromises to keep
things moving towards a successful completion. The Triple Constraint is a model
that helps managers know what trade-offs are going to work and what impact
they’ll have on other aspects of the project. The Triple Constraint appears
simple, but that’s only on the surface. Each of the three points of this triangle
can be unpacked to reveal deeper meaning.

Cost
The financial commitment of the project is dependent on several variables.
There are the resources involved, from materials to people, which include labor
costs. There are other outside forces that can impact a project, which must be
considered in the cost of the work.

There are also the fixed and variable costs inherent in any project, such as the
economic cost of teams with varying skills and productivity, which must be
calculated. This can seriously come into play with the use of contract workers
or outsourcing.

Cost processes include cost estimating to figure out the needed financial
commitment for all resources necessary to complete the job. Cost budgeting
creates a cost baseline. Cost control works to manage the fluctuation of costs
throughout the project.

Scope
As mentioned, project scope deals with the specific requirements or tasks
necessary to complete the project. Scope is important to manage on any
project, whether agile software projects or well-planned waterfall projects,
because if you can’t control the scope of the project, you’re not likely to deliver
it on time or under budget!

When managing scope it’s critical that you prioritize your tasks, enabling you
to plan and assign resources effectively. Without creating a sense of order, it’s
easy to become overwhelmed, enabling scope creep. Make sure that you knock
out prerequisite tasks so your project can develop smoothly without hang ups.

Another key factor in managing and establishing scope is handling stakeholder

expectations. Stakeholders can often have new demands that popup during a
project, and you need to be able to assuage their expectations. This can
especially be the case in long term projects where there might be new
stakeholders introduced in the middle of the project.

In order to accommodate the requests of stakeholders, and new demands that

arrive naturally as projects unfold, you need to be able manage change. This
can include managing change requests. When managing change requests, be
 sure to only accommodate those that are necessary to achieve project goals
and deliverables. These scope management steps are all essential because the
amount of time each task will require is critical to the quality of that final
product. This can have a great impact on schedule and cost, especially so if the
project is on a large scale.

Time
At its basic, the schedule is the estimated amount of time allotted to complete
the project, or producing the deliverable. Usually, this is figured out by first
noting all the tasks necessary to move from the start to the finish of the project.

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is used to take the large project goal and
break it down into a series of more manageable tasks. These tasks are then
prioritized, dependencies are linked, and then placed on a timeline.

A Gantt chart is one way to visualize the project schedule, with each task a
point on that timeline, with task dependencies linked, and durations
determined. Having historic data can help make more accurate estimates.

According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), the

schedule can be managed through a process of time management. Those steps
are as follows.

1. Plan Schedule Management: Creating policies, procedures and

documentation for planning, executing and monitoring the project schedule

2. Define Activities: Identifying and documenting what actions must be done to

produce the project deliverables

3. Sequence Activities: Identifying and documenting the logical order of work

to be most efficient

4. Estimate Activity Resources: What type and how many materials, people,
equipment, supplies, etc. are needed to perform each activity

5. Estimate Activity Durations: How long will it take to complete each activity
with the resources estimated

6. Develop Schedule: Analyze activity, duration, resources and timeline to

develop a schedule

7. Control Schedule: Comparing planned schedule to actual progress to

determine if your project is on track

Time management is also important at the team member level too. Project
managers look to get support from their team in this area, through collaborative
time management tools and processes so the project is collectively able to stay
on track.

Roles of Stakeholders in a Project

Stakeholders are usually parties who have a stake in a project and have a great
influence on its success or failure. They may be equity or preference
shareholders, employees, the government agencies, contractors, financial
institutions, competitors, suppliers and the general public. Stakeholders play
different roles within a project, depending on responsibilities, rules and titles
formulated during the formation of the project or during its growth. This paper
seeks to explain the various roles played by stakeholders in managing a project.

Voting and Decision Making

Stakeholders such as board of directors may vote on significant concerns
affecting the project. Voting may be annual based or semi-annually depending
on the structure of project (Freeman, 162-165.). A stakeholder has the right to
introduce new ways of doing things in a project. For instance, in case there is
embezzlement of funds in the project, a stakeholder may suggest a change in
management to avoid future collapsing of the project. Stakeholders may hold
major positions in management of the project, where they are answerable to
the chief executive officer or managing director. A manager may be a
stakeholder in a project because his or her decisions may lead to success or
failure of the project’s performance. The manager may be in charge of
recruiting and training personnel, and informing the interested parties of any
changes in the policies and procedures.

Providing Expertise

Stakeholders are equipped with a wealth of knowledge on industry insight,

historical background and current trends in the industry. Stakeholders may be
professionals who are well versed with the technical skills regarding the
projects. They may include lawyers, accountants, engineers and others. It is
vital to involve all important stakeholders in gathering and documenting all the
necessary requirements to avoid missing key deliverables. The more you
employ expertise, the more you decrease chances of risk in your project.
Involving knowledgeable stakeholders will help uncover risks and then find
alternative ways of managing them. As a result of analyzing project
requirements with expert stakeholders, you get their opinions which increase
the likelihood of project success.

Managing Industrial Crises

Industrial crises involving emission of chemical substances from industries to

the environment are influencing the way governments regulate industries. The
traditional government financial and regulatory policies for safety and health
target more predictable and frequent events rather than unpredictable ones.
The government legislates on major environmental issues to protect its people
from actions that may pose a threat to their health. In doing this, the
government may ban cutting of trees to prevent global warming, impose
penalties on industries that discharge untreated waste products to water bodies
or harmful smoke to the air, which leads to formation of acid rain.

The 3 Types of Stakeholder Communication

Even where no internal change is needed each project needs the support of
key elements of its stakeholder community to achieve a successful outcome in
the most efficient way. And given the only ethical way to influence stakeholder
attitudes is through effective communication, this means every project needs
to communicate effectively to achieve optimum success.

However, reporting is not enough! There are three general classes of

communication that are needed in an effective stakeholder management;
reporting, public relations (marketing) and purposeful communication.

1. Reporting
Reporting fulfils two useful purposes: firstly it demonstrates you are running
your project properly; as project managers are expected to produce reports
and have schedules, etc., issuing reports shows that you are conforming to
expectations. Secondly, copying a report to a person keeps you in touch with
them for when more significant communications are needed. Reporting may
not be communication but it is useful. Jon Whitty has described reports and bar
charts as essential ‘clothing’ for a project manager (and as Mark Twain said
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society”).

You cannot avoid reports; they are required by your company and often by law.
You simply create them as needed. Some examples include:

 Project status reports

 Meetings with your sponsor or project steering committee
 Required reports to shareholders or your Board of Directors
 Government required reports, safety reports, HAZOP, audit reports, etc
The information in reports is typically pushed (sent directly to) to recipients and
while this creates a consistent set of data in a time series, of themselves,
reports are not communication, although information in a report can be used
as part of purposeful communication.

2. PR and marketing
Public relations (PR) and marketing are underrated and underused
communication processes. PR includes all of the broadcast communications
needed to provide information about your project to the wider stakeholder
community to market the value of the project and to prevent information ‘black
holes’ developing that breed misinformation and rumor.

The power of social media to feed on rumors and amplify bad news is massive
and it is nearly impossible to kill the rumors once they have started even if the
information being circulated is completely false. Once a perception of a disaster
is created in a person’s mind, the tendency to reject any other information is
innate—“they would say that, wouldn’t they…?”

Effective PR using a range of available media including web portals and social
media can mitigate (but cannot eliminate) this type of negative influence in
your stakeholder community, both within the organization and externally. The
challenge is to be first, to be understood and to be credible.

Some of the options include:

 Project newsletters (or blogs) with positive, benefits focused information

and accomplishments.
 Travelling road shows and awareness building sessions that people can
attend at various locations to explain the project and benefits.
 Testimonials that describe how the project deliverables provided value.
 To build excitement, consider contests with simple prizes or a project
countdown-until-live date.
 Being open to ‘pull’ communication, by placing useful information such as
frequently asked questions (FAQ) and project documentation in a common
repository, directory or website that people can access subject to
appropriate security processes.
 Investing in project memorabilia with project name or image portrayed,
such as pins, pencils, Frisbees, cups, t-shirts, etc. The project team
members and their personal networks are one of your greatest assets so
make them proud to ‘show off’ the project—this helps with team building
too.
Developing an effective PR campaign is a skilled communications process
designed to build buy-in and enthusiasm for the project and the deliverables.
It is well worth the effort on almost every project! It is far easier to create a
good first impression than to try to change an already formed bad impression
among your stakeholders, and is particularly important if your project is going
to change how people do their jobs – your project will experience far lower
levels of opposition and the change manager will thank you.

3. Purposeful communication
Purposeful communication is hard work and needs to be focused on the
important stakeholders (both positive and negative) with whom you need to
cause a specific effect. This includes providing direction to your team members
and suppliers and influencing the attitude or expectations of other key
stakeholders.

Purposeful communication is hard work and needs to be carefully focused on

the stakeholders that matter at any point in time. As with risk management, a
regular review of the stakeholder community is essential to reassess the relative
priorities of all new and existing stakeholders, to understand if your
communication efforts are being successful (change tactics if not) and to best
focus your communication effort going forward.

Effective communication needs to be designed to be effective within the

stakeholder’s culture. This means learning how the person operates and what
is normal for them; you need to communicate within their paradigm.

Building this type of communication environment designed to support project

success requires a strategic approach. The payback? Less time spent
firefighting and dealing with ad hoc enquiries.