# Speed, Quality and Cost

> Understanding the 'speed, quality and cost' paradox. Why you can only pick two and the value of having to pick.

Source: https://curiouslychase.com/posts/speed-quality-and-cost/

"Speed, quality and cost. You can pick two at the sacrifice of one. Which do you choose?"

I've now seen this called [The Iron Triangle of Customer Service](https://digitalgenius.com/the-iron-triangle-of-customer-service-speed-quality-and-cost/) or the [Project Management Triangle](https://fractory.com/project-management-triangle-cost/).

This has come up a few times in my career when teams were overwhelmed and stressed because the people who had expectations about how the team worked together expected all 3 things in a binary way.

I think using this heuristic should primarily be used when _thinking about how people work together_ when considering these three things.