MENU Magic Triangles
Is 3 a magic number in management?
So many important concepts get boiled down to three factors. It’s as if the Tootsie Roll owl was a management guru!
My first encounter with a magic triangle came from our managing partner during the earliest days of Orion. Jim used to say you can have good, fast or cheap. Pick two. He presented this trade-off as part of the sales process –and I found it very useful during pricing– but it was borrowed from project management. The original project management triangle (or triple constraints model) was Quality, Time and Cost. Over the years, it morphed to Time, Cost and Scope with Quality in the middle.
Not long after that, I learned of the People-Process-Technology (PPT) framework. It had evolved (or shrunk) from the 1960’s Diamond Model for Change and is still a very popular concept today. In order to achieve the highest level of productivity, your staff needs the right skills (People), clear and effective work instructions (Process), and enabling tools (Technology) to help deliver high-quality results as efficiently as possible. I usually encounter PPT when working with systems implementers. Unfortunately, some of them act as if the PPT triangle is far from equilateral. That top-heavy mindset (with IT on top) often leads to disappointing results. Still, after decades of use, PPT is still a useful triangle.
Not to be outdone, I have created a few triangles for Orion’s clients.
The first focuses on strategy realization. The second –much more tactical– addresses three key disciplines that must work in partnership, especially to achieve intended ROI from new technology implementations. The third illustrates how BPM connects key management activities.
So, is my point that all good things come in threes, like Musketeers?
No, not at all. From a communications perspective, there is a benefit to boiling themes down to a few key elements. For instance, for People-Process-Technology, I can easily drill down to create three or four sub-elements for each. But, presenting your management model as an 11-sided hendecagon –I had to look that up– would be unwieldy and confusing. Having three, four or five main elements provides clarity.
More importantly, the triangle (or a slightly larger polygon) illustrates linkage between elements. Each factor does not exist independently or in a vacuum — they are interdependent. Going back to my first triangle (Quality, Time and Cost), if getting the job done takes more time, then costs will go up (or profits go down). Reducing the amount of time available to the work would risk reducing quality. Likewise – as I’ve seen too many times in my career – if you focus overwhelmingly on the new technology without understanding why existing processes do what they do, then your successful technology implementation may have devastating effects on operational effectiveness after you go live.
One of Orion’s most enduring models essentially has two connected triangles. The lower triangle being PPT and the upper triangle linking strategy, organization structure and performance management (metrics). In a world where marketing is always focused on what’s new, the latest “breakthrough,” the one amazing thing that will help you lose 30 pounds tomorrow, it is easy to get caught up thinking a magic bullet (AI?) will solve all your problems and lead to dramatic growth.
The beauty of a magic triangle is that it reinforces that there is no magic bullet. Your organization must consider and balance several key variables to create success that will be measurable upon implementation and sustainable three, five or 10 years out.
P.S. If you are interested in a tool that illustrates how key elements –in this case strategic objectives– are linked interrelate and is excellent at communicating to your team how their work fits into the big picture, check out the Strategy Map. It’s not a triangle, but it has magical properties!