In April 2023, I posted an article called "The fallacy of deadlines", explaining why imposed deadlines always end-up delivering demise on a plate, and how you cant keep scope, quality and cost fixed and also impose a deadline - something has to give. You can read about it here.
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Today, in a retro, I realised that actually, you can make it all work. Yes, that's right - the rule has a loophole. As someone rightfully asked "We asked you to deliver the impossible, and you all complain about it, but the fact is, you somehow did it?!". This gave me pause because they were completely right, we had indeed pinned the triangle poster to the wall, but did indeed do it.
Sadly, like everything in life, it comes at a big cost. Yes we found a loophole, but the loophole to this is goodwill of engineering and product teams, who worked many hours overtime to deliver it "on time", off the books in many cases. In project management tools, it would appear as we've achieved it all, but at the coal face, you have burnt out engineers and others who have sacrified a lot to make it happen. The implications of this are far more dangerous - people will burn up goodwill once, and maybe even a second time, but eventually you will lose the best, through burnout, stress, or frustration. All of which are not ways you want your best leaving.
Ultimately, yes, the triangle has loopholes, but the price to pay is far higher than what any time could buy you.
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