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Golden Triangle, Triple Constraint: Balancing Cost, Time, and Scope in Your Projects

Estimated reading time : 5 min

A project manager’s primary mission is to find the right balance among a project’s constraints. The three essential constraints to master are scope, cost, and time. This triple constraint, also known as the golden triangle, must be considered to ensure project success.

Project management triangle showing the balance between cost, time, and scope, with quality resulting from the right trade-offs among the three
  • Time constraint: The project schedule—key dates for delivering elements or the overall project.
  • Scope constraint: Objectives, deliverables, milestones, boundaries, and technical requirements of the project.
  • Cost constraint: All direct and indirect costs, including resources as well as fees and materials from start to finish.

The challenge is that clients often expect a complete project, delivered fast, at minimal cost.

Two-constraint balance in a project

The triangle metaphor clearly shows the impossibility of optimizing all three constraints at once. If the triangle’s area represents quality, it’s obvious you can’t keep that area while simultaneously shrinking the distance between all three corners.

Trade-offs are possible by constraining two corners, but always at the expense of the third. Typical compromises include:

  • Time and cost constrained: The full scope cannot be delivered. Scope concessions are required to preserve quality.
  • Time and scope constrained: To deliver everything within a short timeframe, you must add resources or better tools—thus increasing the budget.
  • Cost and scope constrained: If the goal is to deliver the entire project with a tight budget, you must accept a longer timeline.

These trade-offs are common and acceptable to many managers or clients, as long as they’re clearly defined from the start.

Illustration of quality impacts when balancing only two constraints in project management

Constraint matrix: a more realistic balance?

At Orchesia, we suggest a different approach: instead of fixing two corners and sacrificing the third, fix one corner, optimize a second, and allow the third to vary.

This anchors projects in reality and promotes pragmatic balance:

  • The fixed corner is immutable. It represents the project’s top priority.
  • The optimized corner is under constant control. The project manager must seize every improvement opportunity.
  • The free corner is the adjustment variable. While not ideal, compromises must be accepted on this dimension.

Defining these priorities—what is fixed, optimized, or free—is an essential step during project definition. The priority matrix below should be built with the sponsor and stakeholders. This alignment protects the project manager and improves resilience to surprises.

Project priority matrix: constrained scope, optimized time, and acceptable cost

Orchesia: the ideal tool to track your project priorities

With Orchesia, we’re building software that helps you structure and sequence your project while applying best practices with ease.

On these solid foundations, your project can then be tracked precisely through Gantt, Kanban, Calendar views, plus fully customizable dashboards.

Orchesia’s tracking lets you:

  • Keep constant watch on your fixed priority to ensure it remains unchanged.
  • Control your optimized priority by anticipating and capturing every improvement opportunity.
  • Monitor day-to-day evolution of the third priority to ensure compromises don’t jeopardize the project.

Try our project management software Orchesia free for two weeks, no commitment!