The Agile Triangle

Jim Highsmith gave a great opening keynote at the 2010 Agile Australia Conference.  One of his most striking visuals was a proposal to replace the traditional "iron triangle" -- cost, scope, schedule -- with an Agile upgrade:

Note that the original triangle has not gone away; rather it has been subsumed under Constraints.

The full slides of the talk are available, as are more extensive reports of the session from Craig Smith and my colleague Shane Hastie.

The Agile Triangle

1. Value: releasable product
2. Quality: reliable, adaptable product 
3. Constraints: cost, schedule, scope

In other words, in Agile we're looking at a bigger picture: making software that organizations want, because

• they deliver real Value now by addressing reals needs, even if these weren't well-captured at the start of the project, and
• are of a Quality that will stand up now, and also and in the future when modifications are (inevitably) required, while 
• smart choices are made to keep the Constraints under a reasonable level of control.