## The What
The 3 factors in project management. Any adjustment to one of them affects the other two. We must carefully navigate these constraints to achieve project success. To put it super simple
* Cost: The total number of engineers
* Scope: A list of features
* Time: Deadline
## The How
Does that mean a project manager can play with all 3 factors? The answer is a clear no. Most of the time, there is at least one factor you can't change, the trade-off is mostly between the rest 2 feasible constraints
### In an Agile Team
Imagine a high-performing cross-functional team where members know each other well, fostering excellent communication. What does their triangle look like?
#### Cost :x:
Normally fixed, limited by headcount, and budget. Compete with other priorities. Importantly, increasing developers doesn’t necessarily boost productivity and adding a new member to a high-performing team can slow them down.
#### Scope & Time :white\_check\_mark:
The scope of the project is negotiable. At the discovery stage, we just have a list of features we would like to deliver, but some are must-haves and the rest are nice-to-haves. So in an agile team, we normally prioritise features and put them in sequence. For example
* MVP: Feature A, B, C
* Fast Follow: Feature X & Y, and optimising feature A
* Settle Down: Code clean up or address some technical debt
#### In a Project Team
Imagine a consultant company with a large talent pool. They are able to form a team and get stuff done quickly. What does their triangle look like?
#### Scope :x:
Negotiable, but once agreed, it becomes the agreement between the two parties.
#### Cost & Time :white\_check\_mark:
Based on estimation. It is very challenging. People write books to express how hard it can be.
## :scroll: Tips
Some quotes from The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks in 1975.
PS: Man=Cost and Month=Time
> Adding manpower to a late software project, makes it later
> For the human makers of things, the incompletenesses and inconsistencies of our ideas become clear only during implementation
> Men and months are interchangeable commodities only when a task can be partitioned among many workers with no communication among them
> How does a project get to be a year late? . . . . One day at a time
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