What are project constraints? How to manage for success!

Introduction

Every project is restricted by certain factors to ensure it serves the intended purpose and does not wander off. These factors create boundaries within or around which a project must operate. These boundaries of a project are referred to as project constraints.

It is important to respect these boundaries because the very success of a project depends on meeting project objectives within these constraints.

Imagine your CEO asks you to lead the development of a new website feature and allocate a specific budget and timeline. The feature was delivered, but it took twice the time and budget allocated. Despite achieving the objective, the project fails as it does not respect the agreed constraints.

Most project managers learn to manage project constraints the hard way.

In this post, I have shared my insights on project constraints and real-life examples that will help you learn how to manage project constraints easily.

What are project constraints?

Project constraints are the limitations within or around which a project must operate. It includes time constraints, scope, cost, quality, and more.

Every project must operate within these constraints to be labeled successful. Going beyond these limitations means a project has not met its objectives or lost its significance despite completion. That’s why it becomes essential for a project manager to manage and balance these constraints.

Managing project constraints is one of the core responsibilities of a project manager because key stakeholders are directly concerned with these.

What are the types of project constraints?

There are many project constraints, but the following six are the most important and common project constraints: scope, time, cost, quality, risk, and benefits. This six-constraint model is accepted worldwide and evolved to deal with the increasing complexities of a project from the traditional triple constraint model by PMBOK (which we discussed later in this section).

Even at our organization, while developing new features for our product ProofHub, the primary focus of our management team is to balance these six constraints. Let’s understand these constraints.

1. Scope

The scope constraint defines what you need to do and what you need to achieve from a project. You should not approach anything outside the scope of the project. It is the most critical constraint of a project because it directly impacts all the other constraints.

If the scope changes, the project’s cost, schedule, quality, and resource requirements will also change because the entire project management plan is designed based on the requirements. That’s why project managers give special importance to comprehensively defining and managing the scope in the project scope statement.

Scope constraints impact and guide a project’s execution by defining project requirements, goals, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and tasks required to complete the project.

2. Time

Time constraint defines the time you have to complete a project. It restricts you to a project timeline within which a project must be completed. Your project schedule does not go beyond that. It is one of the most highlighted constraints of the project because stakeholders want project delivery on time.

This constraint determines the project schedule, resource requirements, and cost accordingly. It is directly proportional to scope. If the scope is increased, the time required to complete a project will also increase. However, if you want to keep project time fixed, you need to increase the resources for the project, which leads to increased project costs.

Time constraints define deadlines for each project phase, milestones, and the final project launch. This helps in effective project time management.

3. Cost

Cost constraint defines the budget you have for a project. Like scope and time constraints, it restricts you to a specific project budget. This is also the most critical constraint of the project because stakeholders are highly concerned about the project’s cost. You must manage project costs and complete all work within the allocated budget.

Cost or budget constraints directly impact the project’s quality and/or other constraints. The relationship between these primary three constraints of the project is defined as:

Cost = f(scope, time)

Cost constraints include defining all types of costs of the projects such as labor, materials, and equipment.

Read more: Reasons for cost estimation inaccuracies in project management and how to avoid them

4. Quality

Quality defines the standards a project must meet to satisfy stakeholders. Suppose the defined level of quality is not achieved in project deliverables. In that case, there is no point in balancing the scope, cost, and time because the stakeholders are unsatisfied and will not accept the project. Thus, a project manager needs to emphasize ensuring the quality of project deliverables using various quality management techniques.

Quality constraints include defining and documenting the acceptance criteria of each project feature. It directly impacts the time, cost, and scope of the project.

5. Risk

Every project has certain risks that need to be addressed and managed. Because these risks, when they happen, can impact the project cost, schedule, quality, and outcomes.

A project manager must create a risk management plan to mitigate and manage risks. You need the additional contingency funds and buffer time to control, manage, and mitigate project risks.

For example, any change in the resource availability of a project can lead to delays, increased project costs, and even complete project failure. You should create a resource management plan for your project, keeping resource constraints in mind.

Risk constraints include defining limitations related to various project resources such as people, equipment, facilities, & software and any other risk that can derail the project. Project risks can be internal and external and impact the project positively or negatively.

6. Benefits

While time, cost, scope, quality, and risk constraints focus on completing a project within time and budget and providing a satisfactory product or project outcomes to the stakeholders, they do not provide any measure to monitor and evaluate the benefit of a project.

Benefit constraints define the benefits or value stakeholders get from a project. The need for this constraint arises because of the dynamic nature of the market.

If a project at the beginning seems to generate value to justify the investments but does not produce enough value midway, there is no point in continuing it. This is because the project will lead to a waste of funds, time, and resources despite being unable to deliver at the expected time, cost, scope, and quality.

Benefits constraints include using various tangible measures to measure the project’s benefits and keep evaluating the derived value of the project at key stages or events.

Triple constraints of project management

Scope, cost, and time are referred to as the triple constraints of the project. These are defined in the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) by the Project Management Institute. These are often represented in a project management triangle or iron triangle as three constraints at the three edges of a triangle.

Read more: What is the project management triangle?

This is the traditional approach to project management constraints. For many years, project managers have been encouraged to look at the triple constraints in project management to provide a framework for planning, monitoring, and controlling a project throughout its life cycle.

However, the increasing complexity of the projects demands enhanced and more evolved versions of the control and management of project constraints. This leads to a revised model of project constraints, including three more constraints: quality, risk, and benefits.

These additional constraints are first mentioned in the PRINCE2™ methodology, which added quality (as a distinct factor), along with benefits and risk – to produce six constraints of a project. A project manager’s responsibility is to manage and balance these constraints throughout the project life cycle.

Read more: Demystifying the 5 phases of project management

Importance of project constraints in project management

Project constraints are a compass that guides project managers to stay on track and achieve desired outcomes. It helps define the project’s boundaries, keeps everything aligned, and ensures nothing goes off course. Have a look at the benefits of project constraints in project management.

1. Helps you complete projects within budget and time

Project constraints depict the relationship between the various key factors of the project, such as scope, time, and cost. Thus, you can better understand and manage these factors to complete a project within budget and time.

For example, if stakeholders want to expand the project scope, you know it will impact the cost and time. It is because an increase in the scope means you need more time and resources to complete a project. Thus, you can re-evaluate the project cost and schedule based on the added scope to complete a project on time.

Or, if stakeholders fix project costs and time constraints, the project constraints help in the trade-off, prioritization, and selection of product features to be developed. This way, you can reduce the scope and complete the project within the budget and on time.

2. Enhance transparency and ensure stakeholder buy-in

Project constraints help you make stakeholders understand the interplay between the scope, cost, time, and quality.

There is a popular theory of picking any two: cheap, fast, or good.

It cannot be good if you want cheap and fast; quality will suffer.

If you want it fast and good, then it would cost you. You need to increase the budget.

This is stated in the Common Law of Business Balance, attributed to John Ruskin. This Reddit thread still accepts comments if you want to participate in the discussion.

Thus, project stakeholders can better understand the project situation and make informed decisions based on what is important to them.

This enhanced transparency helps stakeholders decide, takes control of the decisions, and increases buy-in for initiatives with prior agreements.

3. Control projects and eliminate bottlenecks quickly

Project constraints define the limits or boundaries of the project. This helps you take control of the project by clearly defining the boundaries and thresholds. With the enhanced clarity of the budget and time, you can easily track budget and time utilization, compare the actual progress with the expected progress, and identify the bottlenecks and their impact to get the project back on track. This ensures your projects stay in control and are completed on time.

How to manage project constraints with real-life examples?

The Theory of Constraints assumes that there is always at least one constraint present that prevents a company from moving forward. And I completely agree with that!

Being the CEO of a bootstrap company, ProofHub, I know how hard it is to make decisions on the trade-off between cost and time because they directly impact the quality and scope.

All project constraints are interrelated, making it critical for project managers to proactively manage them to deliver on expectations. There are various tools, techniques, and methodologies to manage project constraints. Let’s understand how to manage them with unique insights from personal experience.

1. Understand and clearly define project constraint

The first step to managing project constraints is to understand them. We all know about the triple constraints of the project, but project constraints can go beyond and include any limiting factor of the project: resources, project benefits, or equipment.

Identify and document all the project constraints.

How to do it:

The best way is to use a digital centralized collaboration platform. For example, we use ProofHub discussions to facilitate conversations. First, it helps brainstorm with all the stakeholders, and second, it creates a record for easy documentation, resulting in saved time and effective collaboration.

Real-life example:

Suppose you are leading the development of new features in a product. By discussing upfront with your team and stakeholders, you uncover additional constraints and limited access to technical resources during the holiday season. Knowing this relatively early gives you enough time to plan around bottlenecks.

2. Create a project plan

Once you have identified and documented all the project constraints, the next step is to take the risk management approach. The purpose is to plan the mitigation measures for the risks that can impact project constraints.

It is the most crucial step. Project managers can use historical data, expert judgment, and various project management processes, techniques, and methodologies to create a plan to manage project constraints. The purpose is to ensure a project operates within the defined boundaries.

Techniques to try:

I preferably use work breakdown structure (WBS) and three-point estimation to accurately predict the cost of tasks. I do it for tasks in each phase or milestone. With a project budget divided for each phase or milestone, it makes it easy to keep track of the project cost and keep it in check.

Real-life example:

In a construction project, dividing the budget per milestone helps you spot cost overruns early. If the construction material prices show a steep increase, you have the time and buffer to reallocate resources or adjust scope before it affects the overall timeline.

Pro tip: It is advised to involve stakeholders and subject matter experts from the various departments during planning. Their insights help develop realistic measures to resolve risks that can put project constraints at stake.

3. Track the progress

You know about the project constraints, their impact on the project, and how to mitigate the risks if project constraints turn into risks. But to apply this approach to real projects, you must track the progress. This helps you identify deviations from the original plan as soon as they happen.

Tools to consider:

Tools like the Kanban board are the best way to see all tasks at a glance and keep track of the progress.

Real-life example:

If you notice that several tasks are delayed due to resource unavailability on the Kanban board, you can reassign tasks, avoid further disruptions, and ensure the project stays on track. By staying vigilant and actively monitoring progress and tracking project constraints, you can take swift measures to manage project constraints.

4. Effective communication with the team

You might have the best project plan and all the necessary buffers and contingency funds to manage project constraints. However, if your team is not following the plan and coordinating effectively, it will derail the project. Therefore, your project team members must be aware of the project constraints, understand the impact of their roles on the project constraints, and be updated about the latest progress of the project to manage project constraints effectively.

How to improve communication:

Real-time chat can help you improve communication by facilitating instant messages. The better the communication between the team, the better the chances of achieving project objectives.

Real-life example:

A marketing team running an event campaign uses ProofHub to align tasks. When one team member encounters a delay with campaign management, they alert the team immediately, allowing others to shift priorities and prevent a knock-on effect.

5. Use project management software

Applying project constraint management to real projects requires the project team to work together, share documents, and track the project’s progress. Thus, you need a centralized project management platform that can help you manage project constraints.

Find a competent project management software:

Choose a project management software like ProofHub. It provides you with features to create a project plan, brainstorm with stakeholders & team to identify project constraints and collaborate with the team to work together effectively to manage project constraints.

Real-life example:

A software development firm uses ProofHub to manage complex projects requiring cross-functional team involvement. By keeping all project data—tasks, timelines, budgets, and reports—in one place, the firm ensures smooth collaboration and keeps every team aligned with constraints.

Using the above five tips, you can manage the constraints of your projects and increase the likelihood of completing a project within budget and time.

Manage project constraints with ProofHub

For project success, you must respect and manage project constraints. Active management of project constraints helps you complete projects within the agreed budget, time, and quality. Having the right tools, techniques, and resources to manage project constraints would be best.

ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and team collaboration software that helps you brainstorm with stakeholders, create a project plan to manage risks and collaborate with the project team to manage project constraints.

Here is ProofHub can help:

• Project discussions to brainstorm with stakeholders
• Gantt chart to create a project plan, add project constraints, and set dependencies
• Task management to collaborate with the team on project tasks
• Task comments and file sharing to collaborate with the team
• Real-time chat to communicate with team members

FAQs