Can QA defy the Law of the Iron Triangle?

The standard project management iron triangle consists of three points: “on time” (fast), “on budget” (cost-effective) and “of high quality” (functions as expected).  Conventional wisdom says that you can pick two but cannot have all three. In reality, for a project to succeed, the three points need to be balanced. This high wire act is one of the biggest project management challenges facing any project in any industry.

Team members may frequently be under pressure to deliver fast and cheap, but our QA engineers are the organizational conscience that ensures the end results reflect R/GA’s quality standards and keeps the triangle in balance.

Our goal in the quality assurance department is to be advocates for the quality of the product and for the quality of the user experience, while also keeping in mind the schedule and budget. In this way, we tip the scale of the “quality” point of the iron triangle to balance out what might be the developer’s stronger focus on the “on time” point or the project manager’s laser-eyed focus on the “on budget” point.

The balance between individual and common goals leads to a sort of economics of collaboration.  When it’s working right, the tension between disciplines proves the old wives’ tale wrong: you CAN choose all three and have a balance of work that is done on time, on budget, and of high quality.