Limited budgets, required scope, hard and fast deadlines, and quality standards. These constraints make project delivery challenging! Wouldn’t it be great to manage projects without the pressure of constraints? Not so fast. Here’s how constraints help us deliver our projects.?
- Budgets drive perceived value. A non-profit I volunteered for used to hold an intro training session free of charge. People would sign up and then no-show. When we began charging $5 for the session, the same number of people would sign up and show up! Likewise, an unlimited budget for producing project deliverables might lead to stakeholders taking what we deliver for granted. We would get endless change requests to add more functions and capabilities to our deliverables. Completing a project would become a minor miracle!
- Scope guides us to the finish line. Without a well-defined scope, we would never know when we were finished. New business demands could lead to endless mandatory requirements. Sure, we want to be responsive to new business demands. We also need to deliver and stabilize products before addressing additional requirements. In an agile environment, you can do this promptly, but not if delivered features aren’t yet working as intended. Scope definition and management helps us ensure business capability moves forward in a stable fashion. Leaps in capability are limited to what stakeholders can absorb, and organizational change management can be effective.
- Deadlines drive priorities and project staffing. How many times have you had staff start working on tasks at the last minute? When operational personnel step out of their day-to-day roles to work on projects, the organization struggles to deal with their absence. So, managers try to avoid that stress as long as possible. Without managed schedules and deadlines, getting staff for project work would become even more difficult than it already is. We need deadlines to set expectations for when business change will occur and to prioritize staff assignments.
- Quality standards guide task definition and testing criteria. The quality needs of stakeholders helps define project activities. And those activities vary based on the quality required. Without quality standards, we can’t be confident that we have appropriate tasks and test plans. For example, word-processing software doesn’t require perfection. A glitch in a word processor isn’t likely to cause significant risk or expense. In contrast, an anomaly in air traffic control software could be devastating on people’s lives. Therefore, an air traffic control systems requires more testing and performance verification tasks, driven by the need for quality.?
What other reasons have you found to love project constraints? Share with us in the comments section.
For more about project constraints, check out my Project Management Foundations course.
Join Chris Croft and me on August 22, 2023, at 9am MT for our live broadcast “Do You Need Project Management Certifications, and If So, Which Ones?”
One of the most frequent questions Chris Croft and I get is “Do I need project management certification?” quickly followed by “Which certification or certifications should I get?” Everyone’s journey is different, just like Chris and I took very different paths. So, we’re going to explore whether project management certifications are valuable, what else you can do to make yourself stand out, and finally, which certifications to look at if you decide you need them. Bring your questions to this informative and fun session. By the way, this topic is just one that we explore in our new course, How to Launch a Career in Project Management.?
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PMO Lead | PMP? | PMI-RMP? | MSPM | MBL
1 年Excellent summary. Without constraints the definition of a project vs operations is lost, and a project's value is unclear to its stakeholders.
Global Logistics & Supply Chain Leader | Cross-Functional Project Management (PMP) | Continuous improvement
1 年Your approach to project constraints is truly provocative and makes a lot of sense. I've personally experienced working with a limited budget, and I strongly believe that such situations foster creativity and collaborative problem-solving among colleagues, ultimately leading to successful project outcomes.
Information Technology Project Manager with 8 years of experience | PMP and PMI-ACP Certified | "Projects are for people" | Seeking full time employment
1 年I think constraints are absolutely amazing! Constraints require people to think outside the box and forces creativity! I know some programmers deliberately put constraints on projects they do for fun, just to force them to be more creative.
Teach Project Management courses to technical graduate students
1 年I like constraints because it provides focus and creative challenges to come up with fresh ideas. If there are no constraints, complacency sets in and people tend to go with the most intuitive idea that comes to mind rather than investing in the development of better ideas.