Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age

by Roman Pichler

The Iron Triangle and the Secondary Success Factor A handy tool for illustrating that release contents, date, and budget cannot be fixed simultaneously is the Iron Triangle. Traditionally, the triangle looks at scope, time, and budget. To optimize it for developing a roadmap, I have replaced scope with goal or features in Figure 41. FIGURE 41: The Revised Iron Triangle The Iron Triangle states that one of its vertices must stay flexible and act as a release valve to account for unforeseen events. You cannot lock down all three factors—unless you compromise quality, which is not advisable. Compromising quality may give you some short-term benefits, like an increased development velocity, but it will hurt you in the long run. If your product suffers from poor quality, users may get frustrated and stop using it. In addition, responding to changes and adapting the product will take longer and be more expensive. Therefore, don’t flex quality, but keep it fixed.49