Conflicting Information? Iron Triangle/Tripple Constraint

joshmadakor

So, according to Sybex from books 24x7, as far as CompTIA cares, it's composed of, time, budget and quality.

uCertify is referring to it as the "Iron Triangle" and says its composed of time, cost and scope.

Are these talking about the same thing? Which one do I follow? I figured I would follow CompTIA's definition, seeing as how I'm taking a CompTIA test, but I am extremely frustrated seeing uCertify mark that answer as incorrect. Any input would be great.

Taken from uCertify:


Taken from Sybex book on Books 24x7:

erpadmin

Josh, I would definitely heed the Author's advice. When I took the CIWv5 exam, I remember that CIW stressed Time, Scope and Budget. What she is saying is that CompTIA wants you to remember Time, Budget and Quality.

That's what I took away from it. Hopefully others can chime in.

eMeS

Think of it like a stool with three legs.

The legs of the stool can be time, budget, and scope, or they could really be any three factors that are important to you and your project.

If you focus too much on one factor, you end up with a leg of your stool that is higher than the other two, mean that your project is out of balance. Same thing occurs if you sacrifice one factor over others. The goal is to establish and maintain some level of balance between the factors that are important.

Hey, some guy just told me that he'd "push up my stool for me". I'm gonna go see what he means...

MS

AlexMR

Erick Vurzuh refers to the triple constraints and is very illustrative of their meaning. He talks about Time, Money, quality and I honestly believe it is the "MOST" right apporach.

When it comes to the PMP and Project+, the triple contraint refers to Time, Cost and Scope.

For a project manager in the trenches the contraints that Time, Cost and Quality represent, it's a way more valuable concept to grasp and have in mind.

Scope is defined by the requirements that "Quality" refers to, and it is also determined or directly related to both "Time" and "Cost".

As you should know scope mmust be managed and it is vital that you do it properly to be able to call your project a success, but the "time, cost and scope" constraint leaves a hole in the quality aspect of the project and its deliverables, while the "Time, cost and quality" constraint DOES consider the scope. That's the reason why I think the right one to use when defining the project and while managing it is the latter.