How the Most Repeated Capital Project of All Time Debunked the Iron Triangle
The Iron Triangle
The Iron Triangle is a model of project constraints that project teams have used since the 1950s, based on the following assumptions:
The project is constrained by the budget, schedule and quality (scope, features and longevity).
The project team can trade between constraints.
Changes in one constraint require changes in others to compensate.
The Iron Triangle is also called the Project Management Triangle, Project Triangle or Triple Constraint.
The Liberty Ship - The Most Repeated Capital Project of All Time
Between 1941-1945 2,710 Liberty Ships were built across 18 ship yards. 336 ships were built in the Calship Yard.
The first ship built in the Calship Yard:
Cost $3.8M
Took 276 days to build
Had a lifetime of 5 years
Ship 336 built in the Calship Yard had a:
30% lower cost
was built in 15% of the time
lasted 2x as long as Ship 1.
All the constraints of the Iron Triangle were significantly improved, without tradeoffs.
The potential performance and upsides achieved in the final ship existed in the first ship. It took 336 tries to identify and lock-in these upsides.
Finding the Upside: Zero-Based Analysis
Zero-Based Analysis (ZBA) is systematic approach that brings all of this opportunity to light before the project is executed.
ZBA finds the truly incompressible triangle of cost, quality and schedule.
It gives the theoretically perfect project, against which current plans and designs can be compared to find all the potential sources of upside.
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