The Three-Legged Stool

Time, Cost, Quality: The Project Manager's Three-Legged Stool 

There are many analogies for "the three-legged stool", ours is all about balancing the budget with the timeline and the quality (which is usually measured by scope and thoroughness of products or services provided by the project).

"Absolutely Nothing Works!"
Yep, that was the primary complaint by one of my business owner on a large scale ERP project.  Hmmm.  Do we need to get more money to make sure we fix everything?  Do we need to push out our deadline?  Is our test plan so bad that we let a lousy solution move forward?  The impulse is to increase quality/scope, ask for more money, ask to extend the deadline to satisfy the business owner's complaint.    


The Practical Project Manager balances the three-legged stool by making course corrections.  This is done by maintaining great relationships and keeping communication flowing to ensure the best quality product or service is being produced.  Here is how:


Review your EXTERNAL FORCES CHECKLIST.   

• What resources (time/cost/quality) are MOST available?  
• Is your timeline more negotiable than your budget?  
• Do you have a resource constraint or are there available resources who can help out?
• Does your solution fit in with appropriate innovation or technology trends?  Is it off-point?
• Does your solution meet the stated objectives, realizing there may be some kinks to work out?
• Review which requirements are working / not working and how important they are to meeting your stated objective

Knowing what resources you can leverage is key, but first a little reality check on how things really work:

Constraints are set by external forces, specifically timeline and budget.  External forces also determine the value your project brings to the overall enterprise.  However, this may not be as apparent or important as the forces on  your timeline and budget.  Your Subject Matter Experts (or SMEs, pronounced "smeez") provide detailed requirements which guide your quality and scope.  


Here is the reality:  you will have a downward force to reduce the timeline and or budget, but will have upward force to increase the quality of your product or service to meet the stated objectives.  So most of your time will be spent ensuring the best quality work product is being produced within these constraints.

• Talk to people one on one.  How are things actually going?  Are there actions, issues, risks that require attention or course correction?
• Plan the work, work the plan.  Are you executing against plan?
• What is your ETC (Estimate To Complete)?  Do you know at all times what percent of work is complete and what percent is remaining to meet stated objectives?
• Conduct a DAILY STAND UP with your team (or request your team leads do this with their respective teams)
• Conduct a PROJECT REVIEW with team leads every week
• Update your plan and calculate your ETC (ESTIMATE TO COMPLETE) once a week
• Report written status to the PROJECT SPONSOR at least every two weeks
• When writing status reports, make sure to get feedback and approval for course correction; your status includes where you are at COMPARED TO WHERE YOU PLANNED TO BE AT.
• Document COURSE CORRECTION decisions
• BALANCE THE BUDGET once a month

Refer to: #2 Balance the Three-Legged Stool

Always refer to your company's methodology or the Project Management Institute for specific how-to.