People in Projects

The Fourth Constraint: Relationships

Russ Volckmann; Joan Knutson, Contributing Editor

PM Network 15 (May 1997)

Schedule, budget, and quality: these are the critical variables in project management, often referred to as the triple constraints. The core task in project management is to manage each of them, as well as the implications of the effect each will have on the others. If you decrease budget, there will be an impact on the schedule and/or on the quality of the product. When the budget is decreased or the schedule is tightened, some functionality will probably have to be sacrificed.

In the same way, effective relationships are critical to the success of our projects. The quality of relationships within a project and between a project ...