23 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
23 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
title: The Iron Triangle, or "Pick Two"
|
|
---
|
|
# The Iron Triangle, or "Pick Two"
|
|
|
|
Software development is a series of tradeoffs between features implemented, the quality of the features, and how long it takes to produce.
|
|
But, no matter how much effort is put in, one cannot sustainably maximize all three of these without increasing the cost of the project.
|
|
For software development, often cost is directly related to the number of people assigned to and working on a project.
|
|
This concept is often summed up as "Pick Two: Quality, Speed, Features".
|
|
|
|
This relationship between quality, features, speed, and cost is illustrated by imagining a triangle with a fixed volume
|
|
with the volume being quality.
|
|
One can increase speed to implement and the features, but quality will suffer if cost is unchanged,
|
|
keeping the volume of the triangle the same.
|
|
|
|
Frequently cost is assumed to be constant because in most cases the cost is fixed and there is no budget to add more people
|
|
nor are there people available for transfer from other projects.
|
|
|
|
|
|
----
|
|
## Sources:
|
|
* [The Broken Iron Triangle Anti-Pattern](http://www.ambysoft.com/essays/brokenTriangle.html) Classic essay by [Scott Ambler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ambler)
|