The Magic Triangle in Project Management

Our guest author Finn explains to you the methodology of the magic triangle in project management and shows you what it all comes down to.

The Magic Triangle is a methodology in project management to illustrate goal conflicts. It primarily embodies the perspective of traditional project management, but can also be used for agile project management.

In order to be able to work with the Magic Triangle and apply it in project management, you must first know and understand the three dimensions. However, before you start, you should inform yourself about why project management is important.

The three dimensions of the magic triangle

The three dimensions of the magic triangle are time, cost and quality. These different dimensions are only difficult to achieve in high fulfilment at the same time. And this is the quintessence of the magic triangle: a project cannot be fulfilled in a very short time at a very low cost, but with a very high quality. Simultaneous goal achievement is desirable, but it is difficult to implement.

In order to determine the characteristics of the individual dimensions, some must be fixed, others remain variable. In traditional project management, there is one dimension that is fixed, the other two are estimated or variable.

Traditional project management assumes that the quality/performance is fixed. This is exemplified by specifications, which specify the quality characteristics to be achieved and the parameters of these characteristics. The costs and the time are flexible. A project is planned, but the fixed costs or deadlines are only assumptions.

Agile project management - e.g. Scrum - reverses this perspective: costs and time are fixed, performance/quality is adjusted. Sounds strange? It's not, just a different approach: Scrum uses so-called sprints, in which performance is delivered. These sprints usually last two to four weeks - but there are countless exceptions and variations. Because it is fixed how many sprints there are or their duration, the time dimension and thus also the cost dimension can be well estimated. Planning is iterative and done in very small steps. The performance varies. What quality characteristics are implemented within this time? What characteristics does the customer want to have additionally in the short term?

Which type of project management is better suited is difficult to judge on a blanket basis. Both types use the magic triangle, but with different objectives. If you want to learn more about project management in general, you can check out the article on Project Management Explained - Everything You Should Know About It..

In general, the Magic Triangle is mainly used at the beginning of a project, i.e. in the first project management phases.

When the project goals are set, the Magic Triangle is used to specify them. However, as mentioned earlier, there are different goal relationships between the three dimensions.

There are three different types of goal relationship:

• Neutral goal relationship: The goals do not influence each other
• Complementary goal relationship: The achievement of a goal has a positive influence. If one goal is achieved, it also contributes to the achievement of the other goal
• Conflicting goal relationship: The goals hinder each other. When one goal is achieved, it makes it more difficult to achieve the other goal

Goal relationships in the magic triangle

Cost goals vs. Time goals: The goal relationship between time goals and cost goals is conflictual. If the time goals are to be achieved, additional resources and money will be needed. In the case of a reduction in resources, the failure to achieve the time goals is likely.

Cost Goals vs. Quality Goals: This is a conflictual goal relationship, as an increase in quality always goes hand in hand with an increase in costs - true to the motto quality has its price.

Time Goals vs. Quality Goals: The third goal relationship is also conflictual, as an increase in quality is associated with effort (and therefore time).

As you can see, the Magic Triangle involves three conflicting goal relationships that you must reconcile at the beginning of a project. Therefore, it is advisable to make a complete recording of all project goals and prioritize them. Following this, the goals can be viewed with the magic triangle: What conflicts exist and how can they be resolved?

If you want to apply the Magic Triangle yourself, a quantitative dimension is also available besides the qualitative application. You establish a coordinate system with a defined scale - there is no specification for this.

Individual triangle: "The larger the area of the triangle, the more difficult it will be to achieve the project goal"

For each project goal, you can now determine the importance of the three different dimensions and draw the triangle. How "big" a project goal is can be read from the area of the triangle. Again, there are no standardizations or categories. Nevertheless, the rule is: the larger the area of the triangle, the more difficult it will be to achieve the project goal. This is because three conflicting goal relations are to be achieved: delivering the product as quickly and as cheaply as possible and in the highest possible quality.

At this point, we would like to point out that deadlines and costs are very easy to define. For dates there is the calendrical system, for costs sums and thus money are used. There is no clear and uniform performance measurement for quality. Quality is the degree of fulfilment of the demands - which means that quality is an individual perception of individual customers.

Put simply: quality is what customers are willing to pay for. If you develop a product that delivers a higher quality than your customers have demanded, you risk not being able to meet time goals and cost goals. And that for quality characteristics that your customers do not even need. Therefore, you should particularly know the requirements of your customers, so that you do not unnecessarily spend time and money on something that strictly speaking does not represent a quality increase.

Conclusion

You best apply the magic triangle in project management directly to define your project goals. It is about three dimensions that contradict each other, but still need to be reconciled. A required quality is to be delivered with a given budget at a fixed date.

In agile management, this perspective is adapted. Through iterative planning of short, so-called sprints, the time and cost dimension are fixed, but not the performance dimension. Which services are provided is planned at short intervals. This can prevent a pitfall of traditional project management, which is illustrated by the magic triangle:

Quality is what your customers pay for. Quality features that go beyond this cause costs and take time (which makes them endanger both time goals and cost goals at the same time). Make sure that you only deliver those quality characteristics that are actually requested.

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