Pot Light Placement Design

The trade-off matrix as a basis for communication project

At the beginning of a project are usually defined in collaboration with the client the scope, created a budget planning and scheduling. Often emerge from these challenging tasks have already been first "conflicts" on

• The customer already has a defined go live date, but has a huge list of demands. The project manager sees already that it is not available in time can be implemented.
• The customer has a fixed budget. While the design of the project plan, it turns out that there is a feature list that is unknown to this day and significantly exceeds the existing budget.
• The customer wants to dive within 3 months, a final solution, the resources are not available
• ...

Such conflicts again and again and there is a very simple methodology to solve together with the customer, these trade-offs. And with the trade-off matrix.

Trade-Off Matrix

The trade-off matrix is composed of three criteria to be defined with the customer

• Fixed: When this criterion can not be changed (for example: the resources or budget are fixed. )
• Chosen: This criterion is chosen, if indicated, for example in the figure, the schedule have higher priority than the features. Say so determines that the customer is willing to give up some features to meet the schedule
• Adjustable: This criterion is generally negotiable. This compromises the other two criteria to be observed.

, to fill this matrix, there is only one rule: Each row and each column can only have a check mark.

In the above example, you have the following observation: For a fixed budget / resources, has the second priority deadline. The features are adapted so that they can be implemented by the agreed end date and within the present budget.

Depending on how the trade-off matrix is filled, has the impact on future planning and also to the further control of the project. The matrix helps to have within a project team a clear focus. For Changes or additional features can always be reminded of the agreement will that has been made at the beginning of the project. It is important to note that this agreement all project stakeholders, including the project sponsor does.


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