The time/quality/cost triangle is well know as a good way to decide where flexibility is in a project.
In short, the client decides on one of these if is the most important to the business and the other 2 are given more flexibility as specifications and timelines wander.
Sometime clients refuse to pick one, and say for example: they need time and cost, but will allow for lower quality. this is not enough room for manoeuvre on a project as complex as a web application.
Therefore:
Only quality is flexible:
The app produced is agreed to be rebuilt properly after a pre-determined time limit (1 or 2 years probably).
This time limit could be discussed at the time, but deciding this up front allows the client to manage costs, rather than devs coming back after 1 year and telling them that they need a rebuild - because the app has become unmaintainable (and this was predictable a year ago!)
Be wary of people thinking/pretending this is the same as Agile! It is absolutely not.
Only Time is flexible:
The app to be produced does not have a fixed deadline, and the client expects longer response times, and does not decide on a launch date until after the app is completed.
When both quality and time are constrained the company ned the flexibility of allowing devs to move to other projects and deprioritise the one with the flexible time-scale. Having any kind of launch date planned before the app is completed and signed off is a fools errand as it will almost always be missed (and this was predictable at the start of the project!)
Only Cost is flexible:
The price is not determined before time and the client pays whatever costs are generated whilst trying to rush a high quality app out of the door, even if estimates are inaccurate.
Cost estimates for features cannot be enforced, as more developers will need to be drafted in to finish the app in time. Cost-flexible clients would receive the developer hours from projects whose time is flexible to allow cost saving for the time-flexible projects and time-saving on the cost flexible projects. Csots on these projects can spiral and its imperative that the client is planning for this. Its not fair to wait until the crunch of a project and say that you have run out of budget. The client needs time to gather budget (and this was predictable at the start of the project!)
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