Time, quality, scope and cost

In a project the time, quality, scope and cost and interrelated. It means you can not have them all set arbitrary. Fixing some defines the others. Affecting others, once some already are fixed practically is not possible.In project management theory that's commonly known as project management triangle.



Main general parameters of software project, but also any other type of project, are time, quality scope, and cost. They define




*how long it will take to complete the project, or reach some of the milestones

*what would be the quality of the service or deliverable

*what exactly would be done

*and finally how much it all would cost



Those are all important information both for the project stakeholder and for the contractor working on the software development. Not understanding these factors fully, could often lead to losses on any of the sides.



Software quality is not visible at first hand, like for example the scope is. It's most virtual quality of the software that reveals itself not immediately, but after some time using the software. Sometimes quality unravels it's culverts when more features or changes of existing are requested. Thus it's easy to forget about it when it is made and determined. Usually, later on, discovered defects are blamed on the current features being developed, contractor's development team capacity and performance. Especially in the smaller and medium start-up projects, where planning is not fully utilized. It's hardly related to the lack of time or last minute increased scope back in some versions before.



During the software development, as product is delivered in increments, each time with new features, it is important to note that released quality has more then accumulative effect. It there was a series of releases with low quality, it would take much time to recover from such quality management and get quality back again to required level. Even worst, if the software foundations and base infrastructure were implemented with low quality, when software grows and starts to change, often there's no other option but to rewrite it from scratchand that costs much more then the proper quality would have had cost when it was needed
Full Post