24/05/2023
The Iron Triangle
The concept of the Iron Triangle has emerged over time out of these general assumptions:
You can develop something quickly and of high quality, but it will be very costly to do.
You can develop something quickly and cheaply, but it will not be of high quality.
You can develop something of high quality and low cost, but it will take a long time.
Let’s look at each of these statements and what they mean for product development.
Cheap and fast
If you develop something cheap and fast, you’ll sacrifice features or the quality of the product to get it done this quickly. You create an acceptable prototype and can start receiving feedback on it immediately.
This allows you to start receiving feedback and improving your product, but the sacrifice may not be worth it. You could hurt your company’s credibility and create more problems for yourself down the road.
Good and cheap
Another option is to create a high-quality product but spend as little money on it as possible. You’ll deliver a better product to your customers, but it could take you a long time to finish it while staying under budget.
If you have the time to do a lot of research and product development in the beginning, this could have better results for your company. But in today’s market, businesses need to be flexible and able to act quickly, which isn’t likely with this method.
Ultimately, since you never received feedback from your customers during development, you may end up creating a high-quality product that they don’t really want.
Good and fast
Finally, you can create a high-quality product in as little time as possible. Out of the three options, most businesses would probably prefer this one. You can create a good product in short time, but it’s going to cost you.
You’ll likely have to invest in a team to help you meet the demands of your timeline – and the extra money spent could be wasted if you have to redo the product.
That means there’s always a trade off:
Cheap + fast = lower quality work
Fast + good = expensive
Good + cheap = not happening anytime soon
What are your priorities?