Priorities and Tradeoffs

  Decision Making   Governance   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

Every project is subject to the triple constraints of time, budget and scope, and they inevitably require tradeoffs. Trouble arises when project leaders and sponsors take an ad-hoc approach to dealing with this reality. Better to anticipate that some tradeoffs will be required and establish your priorities. Here are some practical steps to accomplish this.

At the start of a major project, most project leaders and sponsors setup a governance structure. Often, this governance structure takes the form of steering committees and working groups involving a representative sample of stakeholders who are then expected to make decisions on the various issues confronting the project. As the project progresses, issues around scope, time and budget inevitably arise and the governance group has to make difficult choices and tradeoffs between these constraints. When considered objectively, many of the issues faced by governance groups are predictable. However, in the absence of guiding principles, most governance groups end up making decisions in a fairly ad-hoc manner.

So how can you predict the choices a governance group will face and define the guiding principles for them?

Know your priorities

To begin with, understand that tradeoffs are inevitable. Every project is subject to constraints of time, budget and scope. You should identify beforehand your project constraints…

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