Project Management Triple-Constraint Project Management:

Project Management

Triple-constraint project management: Verizon Wireless

Unlike a company's standard operations, a project by definition is finite in its nature and duration. As diverse as they may be in their nature, all projects are subject to three basic constraints: that of time, cost, and scope. Of course, all three elements affect one another. For example, for a project that creates a new product, time is an important constraint to manage as going beyond the allotted time requires not only additional organizational resources and can also entail the loss of gaining a desired first-mover market advantage. Project costs include all of the organizational resources required to carry out the project, including personnel as well as equipment and materials, and the human and non-human resources, in addition to the financial capital diverted from other projects and regular operations. All projects in other words, have an opportunity cost in time as well as money. Finally, the people and equipment that do the work, the materials they use, and all of the other events and issues that require money or someone's attention in a project are finite. A final critical constraint upon projects is scope. Scope contains two elements: "Product scope describes the intended quality, features, and functions of the product -- often in minute detail. Project scope, on the other hand, describes the work required to deliver a product or service with the intended product scope" (Chatfield & Johnson 2007).

One principle of triple-constraint theory is that increasing one element of the project increases the other contributing elements of the project. Increase the time allotted to the project, increase the budget for the added overtime and manpower. Increase the scope, and increase the time and budget of the project -- or "hire more resources to do the same work in less time" (Chatfield & Johnson 2007). Very often a concern about standard operations can provoke the need to create a project. For example, Verizon Wireless began to have concerns about the accuracy and reliability of its billing systems as a means of retaining and gaining new customers. The means of achieving greater accuracy focused on the ability of the company's it project teams to be able reuse codes and share that information across teams to increase speed of project completion. This would also lead to faster time-to-market for new projects (decreasing the time constraint for future endeavors) as well as more predictable on-time delivery and improved development productivity (MKS: Case Study -- Verizon Wireless, 2004, MKS)..

Verizon set a projected time frame over two years, whereby it moved significant portions of its ten-year-old VISION billing system from non-mainframe desktops to mainframe Java and Enterprise JavaBeans running WebSphere on IBM's AIX operating system. This proved trickier than expected in its execution, given the difficulty managing a temporarily mixed mainframe and application server environment and the fact that different teams had different schedules and workflow patterns. The project took more time and human resources, and thus more financial resources, but it also suffered an additional constraint, not entirely allotted for in the triple-constraint theory, that of good will on the part of employees suffering the change. According to change management theory, another constraint upon projects is often resistance to change itself.

Eventually, the final project at Verizon was realized at its fullest scope. There was an elimination of the need for " a resource-draining, in-house application designed for keeping track of labels," and a "more tightly controlled promotion model that allows developers and managers to know that software builds and deployments are accurate and complete" was created (MKS: Case Study -- Verizon Wireless, 2004, MKS). Processes were subject to more standardization with more uniform codes, now "sandboxes' that permitted multiple developers to edit same file simultaneously and the enhanced communication between it project teams created cost savings despite the time devoted realizing the completion of the project (MKS: Case Study -- Verizon Wireless, 2004, MKS). The scope of the project did not alter so much as it suffered from a time frame that had expanded. Frustrations regarding technological difficulties with mixed operating systems and constructing a uniform code and scheduling approach, and also the need to call in outside consultants increased the budget of the project created further losses, financially and in terms of good will.