Every project — every endeavor in organizations, society, and life — operates within three constraints:
- Quality
- Schedule
- Resources
Quality means how well it is done. Schedule means time — how long it takes. And resources means people and financial cost.
Here’s the meaning of this: these constraints are interdependent. And so you can hit it out of the park on any two of these areas, but not all three.
For example, if you want the end result to be very high in quality and done very quickly, it’s going to cost you a lot. Or if you want to use as little resources as possible, it’s either going to take you a very long time or you are going to have to sacrifice on quality.
You have to choose your priorities.