What this is
A table format that gives your team a concise way to document, analyze, and communicate the alternatives you are considering for scope and features. The trade-off table helps the team capture the critical factors associated with each design alternative under consideration, and allows them to compare the impact of various combinations on the project’s cost, schedule, resources, and risk.Why it’s useful
The “fuzzy front end” of a project is often fraught with many constraints. Management or marketing or customers want the shortest possible schedule. Other groups are pushing flor lowest cost or budget. And everyone wants as many features as possible to satisfy a range of customers. But of course resources are limited!
Using this template allows the team to systematically capture data related to each alternative, and to cut through the complexity to reach decisions. Getting it all onto a page or two can really help a cross-functional team reach agreement on a reasonable scope that meets most important customer requirements.
If your project is planning to make use of outside partners for development, manufacturing, etc., the tradeoff table can be a very valuable tool for communicating scope decisions and key criteria to your partner. Alignment on such tradeoffs is critical to keeping any remote team members on track with the goals of the project, and able to make sound design decisions etc. even though they are not “on site” with the rest of the team every day.
Read more and download the template at: ProjectConnections