TRIANGLES, TRADEOFFS AND SUCCESS: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF SOME TRADITIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT PARADIGMS Ramesh Vahidi Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK ramesh.vahidi@northumbria.ac.uk David Greenwood Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK david.greenwood@northumbria.ac.uk The concept of the ‘project triangle’, together with the related issues of project tradeoffs and project success factors are frequently discussed together in project management (PM) literature. However, these discussions rarely examine their interconnection critically. As a consequence, the models that are developed from and for these concepts are not properly connected; essentially, the tradeoff and triangle models can only deal with a limited range of project success elements. This paper is a conceptual study to highlight the significance of this ‘triple connection’ through a comprehensive review of PM literature. It then compares the traditional approach with suggested alternative ways of dealing with the concepts separately and jointly. Finally, the features of an improved framework for making tradeoff decisions are identified and discussed. KEYWORDS: project triangle, project tradeoffs, project success, tradeoff framework. INTRODUCTION In 1969, Dr Martin Barnes, illustrated the construction projects’ time, cost and quality relations by drawing a triangle to emphasize the importance of managing ‘quality’ besides time and cost (Barnes, 2006). Barnes’s purpose was to envisage, for the first time, the necessity and significance of integrating the three elements to improve project control. This simple illustration set the foundation of the well-known classic triangle in PM history. Three issues of project triangle, project tradeoffs and project success/failure, referred to as ‘Triple Issues’ in this paper, are closely interwoven in project management thinking. The pairwise relations between these issues are frequently addresses in PM literature; however, the relation between the three and its implications is not clearly established. On the one hand, the lack of common consent on the concepts and elements involved in each issue, and, on the other, their discussion in different contexts, cause difficulties of their rational integration. This paper is a conceptual study aimed at examining the project success, project tradeoffs and project triangle coherence as three crucial and closely interrelated concepts in PM. To achieve this purpose, the history and status quo of factors and trends associated with each concept are discussed and compared to each other. It is supposed that a meaningful relation between the Triple Issues supported by a consistent set of elements for each will facilitate making critical decisions and increase the chance of project success. 927 927