Beyond the iron trinagle

I'm preparing for two "project management in libraries" presentations in May/June at upcoming conferences. In describing project management, there are essential basics, including the "iron triangle" or "triple constraint" of  scope, schedule, and budget. These three areas are each represented by chapters and knowledge areas in the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. 

​In an excellent ProjectManagement.com presentation, Dr. Blaize Reich of Simon Fraser University provides project managers with some approaches to move beyond the triple constraint approach. As Dr. Reich points out, the triple constraint isn't the current, first measure of success - rather, it's on value delivery. She describes the work that she and three other research colleagues have undertaken in measuring project satisfaction based on triangle/triple constraint targets and on perceived value (by customer) - and emphasizes that these measures are correlated, but only weakly in some cases.  

Dr. Reich then focuses on three innovations to improve value:

• Design thinking
• Benefits mapping
• Hybrid project management (her area of research focus)

Taking benefits mapping as an example, Reich provides a specific example from an automobile association that's building a service center. One value of benefits mapping that she cited (relating a user experience):  Using this innovation shifted the early project conversation from what we are doing? to why we are doing it? Two specific benefits were articulated and target goals were assigned to each and documented. Importantly, changes to the benefits are tracked as well - if the benefits are reduced during the project work, the use of benefits mapping guides the manager to consider - is the project worth doing with the reduced benefits? 

All of these value-enhancing approaches take time (design thinking, for example, requires a period of times from hours to a small number of days to define the problem space). With schedule pressure, these more methodical approaches can be a difficult sell in the organization.