I say another corner because a while back we had an excellent post called What’s wrong with the ‘Triple Constraint’? which still gets a lot of reads on the Camel. In that post it was suggested that in addition to the usual – Cost – Time – Quality parts of the triangle there should be an additional “corner” Benefits were suggested.
Reading The Times* T2 column yesterday, the journalist Robert Crampton had a small side article that covered his recent trip to the Olympic site in London. The premise of the article was that the Olympic programme of work was actually ahead of schedule and with 18 months still left to go so it looks like we will be celebrating a successful mega project in the UK. Hurrah! A successful project on this scale is great for the project management community but not so great for the media who no doubt would love tales of woe, budget overruns and catchy soundbites from disgruntled tax payers.
Crampton highlighted the fact that the Olympic building programme has taken place in one of the most difficult areas in London in which to build – logistics were tricky (five trucks per minute making deliveries), access difficult, the geographical layout of the area hemmed in by railways, canals and people’s homes. 120,000 people are working on site everyday and that is a massive number to effectively resource manage.
It was the last part of the article that made me think about another corner to the triple constraint;
“Yet it’s being done on time, without any fuss”
So I propose a new corner – fuss! How many projects or programmes have you worked on that brought an intolerable level of fuss – agitation, argument, bickering, a much ado – call it what you will. Just think for a moment about the change requests that appear – sure we can reduce the budget, which in turn might reduce the scope and quality but what about the level of fuss? The level of fuss that could break out internally with the project team; the stakeholders; the users or externally with your client? Is the level of fuss that the change generates worth it? Does fuss soon descend into poor working relationships that make project delivery feel like wading about in concrete boots? Add another skill set to the project manager immediately – manager and vetoer of fuss!
Image: Matt from London
*The Times has a paywall so no direct link available
