The Scope Triangle
This week - a top project management tip that we work to when helping clients plan their construction projects, The Scope Triangle!
It may be known as many different things, but we refer to it as The Scope Triangle. The premise is fairly basic, but then it is an over-simplification of the process of construction to help you decide which type of contract you need and how to run it. There are three points on the triangle:
- Time
- Cost
- Quality
The Scope Triangle states that for any given project you can only have (or at any rate only prioritise) any two of the three i.e.
- Time & Cost: Quick and cheap, therefore poor quality
- Cost & Quality: On budget and high quality means that timescales will suffer
- Time & Quality: Fast & high quality, so watch your budget go out the window
Naturally, you'll want all three and that's what any responsible project manager will aim to do and, in many cases we have achieved all three for our clients. However, this is the exception not the norm, so you should have an idea in your mind which of these is most important to you before building. This will help your architect choose a contract form and to run the contract, it will also help you choose which flavour of builder you'd like to work with and what to expect during the construction process.
