The Project Constraints – How are they addressed in Agility?

When I was teaching Project Management courses, one of my favorite topics of discussion was constraints.  Have you ever thought about constraints? In project management, my opinion is that nothing is more impactful for project success than knowing and understanding what your constraints are. A constraint is simply anything that limits the team’s options. In project management, there are six clearly identified types of constraints that you would need to understand:

• Scope – The scheduled work.  What is the work that has to be completed?

  
  

• Schedule (Time) – When must the project be finished?

  
  

• Cost – How much budget is allocated to complete the work

  
  

• Risk – Dealing with uncertainty

  
  

• Quality – What will satisfy the customer and stakeholders?

  
  

• Resources – What resources (people, material) are required?

Interesting enough, they also apply to several of the Project Management knowledge areas promoted by the Project Management Institute (PMI), circa the Sixth Edition of the PMBOK.  The utilization of constraints is simple; if one of the constraints is affected, it may impact one or more of the other constraints.

So how do we address these constraints in Agile? In Agile projects, the traditional project management constraints—Scope, Schedule, Cost, Risk, Quality, and Resources—are still important but are approached differently compared to traditional methodologies like Waterfall. Agile’s iterative nature and emphasis on flexibility help manage these constraints more effectively, but they still need to be balanced to ensure successful project outcomes.

The key to managing these constraints in Agile is transparency, continuous communication, and the willingness to adapt and reprioritize based on changing circumstances and insights. By doing so, Agile teams can better align their work with business goals while navigating the inevitable complexities and challenges of software development.

Let’s explore how these constraints impact Agile projects and how they are managed within an Agile framework.

Scope

In Agile, scope is flexible and evolves throughout the project based on feedback, changing requirements, and new insights. Agile embraces the idea that customer needs and priorities will change over time, with a focus on delivering value to the customer as soon as possible.  This makes a ‘fixed’ scope challenging.  Change requests don’t really exist; rather any changes are scoped as additional work and prioritized in the backlog.

Agile teams focus on delivering the most valuable features first (MVP - Minimum Viable Product) and refine or add more features in subsequent iterations.  Scope, or the work, is contained within the product backlog.  This work is constantly reviewed and worked on via the following activities:

• Backlog Refinement: The product backlog is continuously updated and prioritized based on business value, allowing scope to be adjusted without disrupting the project flow.

  
  

• User Stories and Iterations: Features are broken down into user stories, which are scoped to fit within short iterations (typically 1-4 weeks).  The user stories represent the work that the team will work on to produce value.

  
  

• Prioritization: Agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban use prioritization methods (e.g., MoSCoW, WSJF) to ensure the most critical and valuable items are addressed first. 

Schedule

Agile projects work within fixed timeframes (sprints, iterations), but unlike Waterfall, the schedule isn’t based on a fixed plan with all details set in advance. Instead, teams work in time-boxed sprints and deliver incremental value throughout the project lifecycle.

Deadlines can still exist in Agile, but the focus is on delivering the highest-priority work within those timeframes rather than completing a predefined list of features.  Release planning is considered in order to provide the customer with realistic expectations of when valuable functionality will be available. 

The schedule is constantly managed via the following activities:

• Time-Boxed Iterations/Sprints: Agile teams commit to completing a certain amount of work within a fixed iteration (usually 2-4 weeks), and the schedule is broken into these smaller cycles.  The goal is produced fully working software increments that can be reviewed by the customer.

  
  

• Velocity: Agile teams track their velocity, which measures how much work they can complete in an iteration. This helps predict how long future work will take.  The teams will adjust this velocity as they improve, hopefully increasing the amount of work they can complete each iteration.

  
  

• Release Planning: Releases may occur at the end of several iterations or sprints, and Agile uses release plans that account for the scope changes and prioritize delivering value continuously.  Release planning cycles will govern how quickly the customer can access valuable new functionality.

Cost

In Agile, costs are often more flexible than in Waterfall. However, the cost is still a constraint, especially when resources are fixed (e.g., budgeted hours for team members or a predetermined budget). Because Agile allows scope changes, there is a potential for cost fluctuation.

Agile projects typically aim to control costs by focusing on delivering the most important features first and continuously reassessing the value of additional work.

Some ways of how Cost is managed include the following activities:

• Fixed Resources: Agile teams often operate with a fixed budget (fixed team size and duration) and adjust the scope or deliverables to fit within that budget.  Understanding a teams capacity, work schedule availability and scheduled time off will help greatly in determining a target budget for scoped work.

  
  

• Continuous Value Delivery: By delivering incremental value early and often, Agile allows organizations to assess the ROI of the project and decide whether to continue investing or change direction based on budget considerations.

  
  

• Burn Rate: Teams can monitor their burn rate (the rate at which they are consuming resources, typically money or time) to manage costs throughout the project.

Risk

Risk is a key focus in Agile, but unlike traditional approaches that treat risk management as a separate phase, Agile deals with risk iteratively. By delivering work in small increments and incorporating feedback early, Agile helps mitigate risks more proactively.

Agile’s iterative approach also allows teams to adjust quickly if a risk impacts (or happens),  reducing the potential negative impact (or problem) of risks.  Being proactive in addressing risk is key; having an identified owner of a risk or even a mitigation plan will enable the team to move quick to resolve the problem.

Risk is constantly managed via the following activities:

• Frequent Delivery and Feedback Loops: The regular delivery of small, testable increments of work allows Agile teams to identify and mitigate risks early. The sprint review and retrospective meetings are key points for assessing and addressing risks.

  
  

• Risk-Based Prioritization: Agile teams prioritize work not just by value but by the risk it addresses. Tackling high-risk items early can significantly reduce project uncertainty.

  
  

• Adaptive Planning: Agile teams adjust plans based on new information gained after each iteration, which helps manage uncertainties and reduce risks over time.

Quality

Quality is a critical concern in Agile projects, but it is integrated into the development process rather than being inspected at the end. The results of quality are represented in the level of customer satisfaction that is achieved from the work being done.  Continuous testing, integration, and feedback help ensure high quality throughout the project.

Agile emphasizes delivering a working product in every iteration, so quality must be consistently maintained, not sacrificed for speed.  Customer satisfaction is key here.

Quality is constantly managed via the following activities:

• Continuous Testing: Agile projects typically incorporate practices like Test-Driven Development (TDD), Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), and automated testing, ensuring that quality is built into the product from the start.

  
  

• Definition of Done (DoD): Agile teams have a clear Definition of Done that outlines what is required for a user story or feature to be considered complete, including testing and quality checks.

  
  

• Incremental Improvements: Agile focuses on continuous improvement through regular feedback, retrospectives, and team reflection, which helps improve quality over time.

  
  

Resources

Resources in Agile projects include the team members, tools, and other assets necessary to complete the work. Agile teams typically have fixed resources (a set team size), and these resources are allocated across iterations.

Resource constraints (e.g., limited team capacity or skills) can impact what can be achieved in each sprint, but Agile encourages transparency about these constraints and adjusts scope or expectations accordingly.

Resources are managed via the following activities:

• Self-Organizing Teams: Agile promotes self-organizing teams that manage their workload and resources efficiently, deciding how to best complete work in each iteration.

  
  

• Capacity Planning: Agile teams perform capacity planning to determine how much work they can handle in an iteration, ensuring resources are not over-allocated.

  
  

• Cross-Functional Teams: Agile emphasizes cross-functional teams where members possess diverse skill sets, allowing teams to adapt to shifting priorities and resource needs.

  
  

As you can see, the Agile framework provides the necessary mechanisms to fully support these constraints.  In Agile projects, the constraints of Scope, Schedule, Cost, Risk, Quality, and Resources are approached with flexibility and adaptability. Agile’s iterative and incremental nature allows for continuous feedback, learning, and course correction, which helps teams manage these constraints more effectively. Rather than fixing all aspects upfront, Agile focuses on delivering value, responding to change, and balancing the constraints as the project evolves.

What do you think about this topic? Please comment or reach out to me at earlgamble@projectagilty.com! Stay Agile!!