You can only have two. (Prioritization and the iron triangle)

Good decision-making is all about accurate information and making conscious trade-offs. Communicating trade-offs effectively becomes a lot easier with a good framework as a tool. The iron triangle is one of the best in my tool box.

When I was volunteering in Guatemala in 2006, I visited a factory that collected old glass, sorted it by colors, and artfully turned it into new objects like carafes, plates, and all types of glasses. In its shop, I encountered a sign stating:

“In this cooperative, we do three types of work: the cheap, the fast, and the good. You can only have two at a time.

A good and fast work…won’t be cheap.

A cheap and good work…won’t be fast.

A cheap and fast work…won’t be good.”

You have the choice.

I’ve used this ever since, and later learned that it is one of the most important trade-off frameworks: the iron triangle. I use it, for example, when building an annual budget or when setting expectations with a Hiring Manager.

By what I can piece together, the iron triangle is often found (in a variation) in project management, and I have also seen it used in industrial production. If you do your own research and find its origin, let met know. Crucially for me, it has proven to be powerful when making prioritization decisions around hiring cost, quality, and speed. It is simple enough to explain quickly, makes intuitive sense, and is a powerful way to draw out the key elements to trade-off when planning or agreeing hiring strategies.

Let me encourage you to try it out, and close with some practical points:

• I use “cost” broadly as the various resources available, all measurable in $: recruiting team resources, hiring team time, external support from paid marketing to search firms, etc.
• “Quality” is the most vague variable. Intuitively, many equate it with “quality of hire, yet it can also mean ‘quality of search’, measured by such things as comprehensiveness of your search and market map, confidence in your choice based on depth of assessment, or attention given to diversity objectives. This distinction is important, because of course rarely will you hear somebody want to hire ‘non-quality talent’. For example, in case of a rushed search, you might still end up with a good hire by chance, but that might be less certain, because you rushed the search.
• Try applying the framework to decisions you have to make. You will probably find that there is not one constant definition of what cost, quality, or speed mean — it depends on what specific situation you are applying it to.
• When communicating this kind of trade-off to counter-parts, I have found that actually drawing out the triangle in conversation is effective.

I love collecting intuitive yet powerful frameworks for structuring my thinking. A simple, yet clear and accurate framework can apply broadly, and be found where people take pride in their work — such as in a glass cooperative in Guatemala.