What is the concept of “Iron Triangle” in Project Management?

Using this concept or

otherwise, do you think that there should be a concept and application of “Time-cost
tradeoff” and/or “Cost-scope tradeoff” and/or “Time-scope tradeoff”? If yes how would it
work? If not, why is it not possible?

Iron triangle in project management show the interdependence of the three primary factors in
project. Time represents the time available for the completion of the project, Cost represents
the financial constraints in the project, Scope represents the specific requirements to achieve
the end results. Quality is at the center of the triangle and the project managers must ensure to
balance the ebb and the trade-offs within the other three elements to achieve success. This
model gives us a way to decide the priorities on a project and also helps in describing items of
value in the project.

The scope can be classified into project scope and product scope. The Product scope involves
detailed explanation of the quality, features, and functions, while the project scope involves
work required to deliver with the expected product scope.

Any changes in one side of the triangle can change other side or both the sides of the triangle.
For example, if there is an increase in the scope of the project that increases the cost and time
for the project. Only one or two elements can be balanced from the three constraints and
modifying the third to maintain the balance. For example, the project with fixed time and cost
can put a restriction on the scope of the project, and a project with a definite scope and fixed
time will need a flexibility in the budget of the project. So, it is only possible to have a tradeoff
between any two parameters and the third parameter must be flexible.

Time-cost tradeoff: Also known as minimum cost scheduling or crashing assumes that there is a
relationship between time taken to complete the task and the cost of the project. There are
two different costs involved in a project Activity direct costs and Project indirect costs. In
activity direct costs the cost of the activity increases as we try to decrease the time taken for
completion such as worker related costs like over time paid to workers, cost of hiring workers
and resource related costs such as buying extra equipment, or more efficient equipment. In
Project Indirect costs are those costs in which the cost of project increase with increase in time
taken for completion such as overhead, opportunity cost of the resources which may be
generally on contractual basis. Because of the opposing behavior of the above-mentioned
activity direct costs and Project indirect costs it is important to find the optimal point in Time-
cost trade-off. Finally, we get a fixed cost and time for the project then we cannot adjust the
scope of the project.

Cost- Scope Tradeoff: With the tradeoff between cost and scope of the project, in which we
reach at the fixed cost and quality of the project then we need to modify the time taken for the
project to get the required scope within the decided budget.

Scope- Time Tradeoff: In this tradeoff we reach a definite time taken for the project with a fixed
Scope for the project, which means that we need to complete the project in a given time and
given quality in this case we cannot have a fixed budget and need to adjust the budget part by
recruiting more workers or over time, installing more capacity which may increase the cost, or
we cannot have a fixed budget for the project.