Page 119 - Project+

Constraints

According to CompTIA, the following are common constraints found on many projects:

Budget

Scope

Deliverables

Quality

Environment

Resources

Requirements

Scheduling

You’ll look at each of these next.

Budget

I have never had the experience of working on a project where budget was not a
constraint. All projects have a limited amount of funding available to perform the work

or to purchase the services required to complete the project. The project costs must be
monitored and controlled throughout the project so that you stay within budget. Work
with your sponsor and key stakeholders to determine the project budget as early as
possible in the Planning process.

Scope

Earlier in the chapter you discovered that scope describes the project deliverables and
outlines the expectations and acceptance criteria for the deliverables and for a
successful project. Scope is a constraint because it dictates the actions of the project

team in relation to fulfilling the deliverables. If you do work other than what’s required
to fulfill the deliverables outlined in the scope statement (yes, the dreaded scope creep
problem), you have a runaway project on your hands and won’t likely have a
successful outcome.

If scope is not fully understood, defined, and documented, you will find

that time or budget or both are also impacted.

Deliverables

Deliverables, as discussed earlier, are measurable outcomes, measurable results, or

specific items that must be produced to consider the project (or project phase)

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