Four Variables: Cost, Time, Quality, Scope

Jason Yip
3 min readDec 3, 2017

4 variables: Cost, Time, Quality, Scope. Cost has diminishing returns. Delaying Time causes coordination problems. Reducing Quality backfires quickly. Controlling Scope is your best option.

There is a concept in project management called the “iron triangle”.

The Iron Triangle describes the need to trade-off against 3 constraints: Cost, Time, Scope. You can only control 2 out of 3.

However, you may notice that project managers / customers / clients will still try to control all 3…

Jason Yip

Senior Manager Product Engineering at Grainger. Extreme Programming, Agile, Lean guy. Ex-Spotify, ex-ThoughtWorks, ex-CruiseControl