Projects are comprised of three things: time, money and some things to do – otherwise known as schedule, budget, and scope. Understanding and appreciating the relationship between the three is a fundamental concept in project management. Impact any one and it will affect the others. In this post we will the describe this relationship through recent project examples.
We should note that much of what follows will sound obvious. Most of us have heard some version of the saying – “you can do it cheap, fast or well – but you can only pick two.” But, it is a lesson we seem to re-learn on every project. Rarely does a day go by where this concept isn’t discussed. Our hope is by providing real examples we can keep this front of mind.
A Narrow Window
A recent project required a launch window between the 4th and 6th days of the month because of month-end procedures. Too late in the month and there would be too much work to catch up on in time to complete financial closing procedures. Too early and staff resources would be too constrained as they would still be completing financial closing from the prior month. To mitigate repercussions and streamline the transition, we set a stake in the ground with Go-Live occurring between the 4th and 6th of the month
We missed our first window by two days. Missing the narrow time constraints meant retaining partners for a longer period and accruing costs. Stakeholder communications, governance structures and re-sequencing of tasks all took time. This near miss shifted the entire project schedule by 28 days – or 20% more time and budget on what was originally a 6-month project.
This was further complicated by good intentions. Having been granted another month of work, project stakeholders saw an opening to add more items to the scope. Earlier optional requirements that had been streamlined in the interest of time were now back on the table – though, would further expand the budget.
This was just one recent example of the connection between schedule, budget and scope. Moving one of the three and it moved the others. Even small changes, when operating against fixed constraints, can have significant impacts that ripple across project baselines.
Within Time and Budget
An incredibly common approach to setting baselines in the nonprofit sector is to constrain time and budget as fixed. Time is often fixed, for example, when a project must be completed by a deadline for a specific campaign launch, because funding has an expiration date, or an organization is leaving a legacy system before a multi-year contract renewal. Budget is often fixed as major projects are often a capital expense requiring Executive and Board approval of a set budget with little flexibility. When time and budget are fixed, scope must be pliable to allow the project to move forward as circumstances change.
On a recent project, budget and schedule baselines had been fixed. The board had approved a fixed amount of money and would not hear requests for additional dollars, and a legacy contract would expire in eight months. The scope was a major systems change from one enterprise application to another. All three baselines were generally well-formed and reasonable, and thus the project began.
Unfortunately, projects don’t exist in a vacuum. After the project kicked off, both the organization and partners experienced staff turnover. Important project team members, including an Executive Sponsor, project managers, and subject matter experts left the organization. Partners also saw turnover and reassignment of staff to other projects. Even with a deep bench of staff on each side, every change required time to identify and onboard replacements. Time, of course, was fixed and at a premium, and what little buffer was in the schedule was quickly gone. Much of the onboarding time was sourced back to the partners, but partners cost money – and the fixed budget had little room for unanticipated costs.
With time and budget fixed, these real-world circumstances forced the project’s scope to change. What had originally been described as a “transformative” project became a “replacement” project. Initial requirements were reprioritized. For example, to meet the real and fast-approaching deadline, evaluation of strategy and alignment of process were given a backseat to core requirements like data mapping. Ultimately, the project met its core objective – replacing the legacy system – and did so within time and budget. However, due to real-world circumstances that affected the project, with time and budget fixed the final scope was something less than the aspiration originally described in the project charter.
Before the Sun Goes Down
In 2017, Blackbaud Inc. ended support for one of its enterprise fundraising applications – Donor Direct. While the sunset of the application had been known for quite some time, many organizations were unable to plan and act far enough ahead of the end-date to implement anything but an aggressive-schedule project. Time was fixed, and all considerations of scope and budget were determined against that fixed point.
In this case, a fixed timeline was further complicated as the market had only a few partners capable of transitioning organizations of that size and scale. Market scarcity placed organizations at a disadvantage to negotiate cost, and required pairing down scope to the minimum viable product, as there were so few competitive options available.
The time needed to approve capital budgets, donor fundraising cycles, programmatic and staff constraints, and a limited number of viable options would further compound time constraints. Those organizations that began the transition with five-years notice were confronted with a tough reality: it took more than a year to achieve budget approval and almost as long to select a partner. A five-year transition window was now inside of two years with little room for error. The project could run, but it had to run well, and it could not fail as there would be no time for a second attempt.
Summary and Conclusions
Every project is made of the same, three elements – schedule, budget and scope (or, time, money and things to do). Each is inextricably tied to the others. Altering one pushes or pulls at the others. Fix one or more in place and the impact on the others can be quite dramatic. Understanding and appreciating this dynamic is a key theme to understanding and effectively navigating your project to a successful conclusion.