Don't give in to the quality, speed, cost tradeoff

By _EDN Blogs

March 30, 2015

Jacob Beningo
EDN (March 25, 2015)

There is an old project management mantra that states: Good, fast, cheap – pick two. This reflects the belief that the three primary competing components of a project -- quality, development speed, and development cost -- fight each other in such a way that only two of them can be chosen for any given project. For example, a project that needs to be developed very rapidly and retain a high level of quality will not be able to be developed at a low cost. The logic goes that it is impossible to do all three. This is a fundamental rule that is taught not only to students at the university level but is consistently repeated throughout the corporate world. Unfortunately it is in complete error and results in an incorrect mindset towards product development.

Let’s review the basics before diving into an alternative mindset to take when considering these three components. Quality, speed, and cost are often represented in a triangular form, but this really doesn’t provide any insight. Instead, consider drawing their relationship as a Venn diagram

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