Project Constraints Don't Really (Always) Matter

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  New Practitioners   Risk Management   Scope Management  

The triple constraint: One of the first things new project managers learn, and the cornerstone of plan-driven project management. We’re all familiar with the concepts of schedule, scope and budget—and we understand that if a stakeholder wants to change one of those variables, then there has to be a willingness to adjust one of the others as well.

New PMs see the triple constraint as the target they have to achieve—that the project will fail if its late, over budget or missing a feature. They lose sleep over small delays, and they try to juggle the plan to find a saving of just a few effort days or to retain the 28^th bullet point on the list of features. And in most cases, none of it matters.

Constraints aren’t usually constraints
Yep, you read that right. The dictionary definition of a constraint is “a limitation or restriction.” In most cases, the only limitation or restriction being imposed on your project is an arbitrary one set by the sponsor or other key stakeholder. And unless project managers realize that, they may not manage those constraints effectively.

I fully accept that some projects are genuinely constrained. An obvious example is a new product that has to be launched in time for a trade fair, or to capture a seasonal market. There is a drop-dead date for that product to be ready, or the organization won’t be …

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