The Triangle Of Truth: Successfully Managing Time, Resources & Scope

One of the basic principles of project management is known as the triple constraint, or, as my former colleague Dave Frantz dubbed it, "The Triangle of Truth."

The concept is simple. A project consists of three interrelated variables: scope, resource (some say cost), and time. These variables are like the angles of a triangle. If you recall from geometry class in high school, the three angles of a polygon (shape) must add up to 180-degrees in order to be considered a triangle.

For example, Angle A (Scope) + Angle B (Resource/cost) + Angle C (Time) = 180. If these do not add to 180 you don’t have a triangle. So, if you make a change to the value of one of the angles, one of the other two or both must also change to compensate, or else the figure is broken.