Criteria for a successful IT Project

For a successful IT project there are several key criteria, which are fundamental constraints serving as the project’s backbone. It’s important to recognize and prevent factors that contribute to ‘scope creep', a common pitfall in project management. Additionally, taking into account vital elements beyond the traditional triple constraints that are crucial for the success of the project.

What is The Triple Constraint?

The Triple Constraint is the Project Management Triangle ( Iron Triangle ), a model of the constraints inherent in managing a project and consists of three primary elements: Cost, Scope, and Time

• Cost: The project budget
• Scope: The tasks required to fulfill the project’s goals
• Time: The schedule for the project to reach 

The purpose of the Triple Constraint is to provide a framework for project managers to make informed decisions throughout the project lifecycle. It guides project planning by helping project managers establish realistic goals and objectives. It also serves as a communication tool to explain to clients and stakeholders that they have a choice; "fast, cheap, or good?". A project can be fast, cheap, or good, but it can’t be all three simultaneously. 

What are “creeps” and their impact on triple constraint?

In project management, “creeps” usually means “scope creep”, which sometimes is known as “requirement creep” or “feature creep”, refers to how a project’s requirements tend to increase over a project lifecycle. This happens when new features, requirements, or tasks are added without proper evaluation or formal approval. Scope creep can cause delays, exceed the budget, and compromise the project’s objectives. 

The impact of scope creep on the triple constraint (cost, time, and scope) is significant: 

• Cost: Scope creep can lead to increased costs. As the scope of the project increases, more resources may be required, leading to an increase in the project’s budget.  
• Time: Scope creep can also lead to delays in the project timeline. Additional tasks or features can extend the project schedule, causing the project to miss its deadlines. 
• Scope: The scope of the project is directly affected by scope creep. The addition of new features or tasks expands the project’s scope beyond what was initially planned. 

Scope creep can ruin the perfect triangle of the triple constraint, and the project could end differently compared to the initial plan. Without reasonable adjustments, the project can potentially miss its deadlines, or it will go over-budget because of an extended schedule, or both. 

10 common causes of Scope creep:

• Not having a clear scope: Make sure the scope is clear to everyone working on the project. Try to involve your team in defining the scope.
• Not having client agreement: Ensure the client understands what is - and isn’t - in scope. Ask: “Are you clear on what this deliverable is and what you’ll get?”
• Not involving the client throughout: Don’t surprise your clients - show them work in progress, and actively involve them in each stage of the process.
• Not raising issues proactively: Raise issues right away, when they happen (but come ready with solutions).
• QA taking longer than expected: Estimate as a percentage of development, and add contingency. Define the browsers, devices, and types of issues you’ll test upfront.
• Not prioritizing features: Take time to carefully identify what’s necessary for releasing a usable product.
• Not agreeing on how to handle change: Outline in your Statement of Work how you’ll handle change and how to raise a Change Request.
• Estimating poorly: Involve your whole team in estimation; don’t guess. Explore and determine client & business requirements against user requirements before estimating.
• Not negotiating new requests: Review all new requests with the full team. Create an understanding of what the request is, the impact of incorporating it, and its outcome for users.
• Not involving users early enough: Get users using the product or service as early as possible. Have a plan to address user feedback wherever it comes within the project.

According to Jack T. Marchewka, the author of Information Technology Project Management: "Top management is often under pressure to develop new and innovative products and services that move the organization toward profitability and competitive leader­ship. However, many times these ideas include a number of less than stellar ideas that get turned into projects. This can occur as a result of "management by maga­zine," when a manager reads an article and forms a new vision. Unfortunately, many project managers fail to object because the organization may have a culture where such things aren't questioned or a belief that senior management could never be wrong.

Moreover, scope creep can be a key challenge, espe­cially when the customer or sponsor has unreasonable or unrealistic expectations. Many project managers may feel they don't have the ability, experience, or power to just say no. Their only option may be to do as they're told and comply begrudgingly even though they know that the likelihood of their project's success is small. 

He believes that this is where the idea of intelligent disobedience can come into play. Intelligent dis­obedience is a quality taught to guide dogs for the blind. For example, a blind person may initiate the move to cross a busy street by giving a signal to the guide dog to move forward. If traffic blocks the crosswalk, then guide dog will disobey the command. This failure to comply with an unsafe command is intelligent disobedience, and the dog owner must learn to trust the guide dog. "

It’s important to foster a culture where ideas are welcomed but also critically evaluated for their feasibility and alignment with the project’s objectives. From an organization-wide perspective, effective project management practices and solutions are key to filtering and minimizing the impact of scope creep.

Some other key factors on top of triple constraint

In addition to the traditional triple constraint factors (scope, cost, and time), there are three more dimensions that can have a big impact on the project success

• Quality: The standards that the project’s deliverables must meet.
• Risk: The potential issues that could negatively impact the project and developing strategies to manage them. 
• Benefit: The value or gain that the project is expected to deliver to the stakeholders.

These additional dimensions are not independent of the original triple constraint factors. They are interconnected and can influence each other. For example, increasing the scope of a project may introduce new risks, affect the quality of the deliverables, and alter the perceived benefits of the project. Similarly, changes in project risks could impact the project’s cost, schedule, and scope.