Managing the Triple Constraint

Timeline, resources and budget are constraints that form the foundation for all projects (Diagram A). Therefore, when a change occurs you must anticipate the equal and/or opposite reaction between constraints. Today, projects are developed by several individuals across siloed departments, resulting in a fragmented process to forecast timelines, budgets and resources.

The Triple Constraint Solution resolves the fragmented approach by establishing relationships between the project timeline, resources and budget so that any changes and resulting impact are understood.

Diagram A

Facilitated decision making
Making decisions on strategic projects can be challenging and time consuming. The wrong decision can be career-ending so accuracy is essential.

• Improve decision making efficiently
• Summarize project cost, resources and timelines
• Model multiple scenarios quickly to synthesize the pros and cons

Budget Accuracy
Starting projects with accurate budgets is essential. Most projects experience budget overruns, resulting in reduced investment in other areas and a lower quality deliverable.

• Resource driven timeline and budgets
• Operating and capital budget definition
• Fiscal quarter budget definition
• Budget baseline for actual performance comparison

Staffing Plans
People cost money. Efficiently using resources to complete projects are key to maintaining appropriate staffing levels and avoiding staff turnover.

• Accurate resource estimates by project
• Identify staffing gaps to meet project objectives
• Under and over allocated resource review
• Staff assignment and allocation

Establishing a timeline
Timeline development should not be defined independent of resources and budget. Timelines should be defined based on resource work.

• Automatic timeline definition based on resource allocation
• Visualize timeline bar graph
• Visually review relationships to other projects
• Quickly change project timelines to analyze impact to resources and budgets

To learn more about how the Triple Constraint Solution can set the framework to begin modeling impacts based on any of the 3 constraints described, please contact us at information@projectnavigation.com.