Project Management Methodology

Project management strategy is the key to project success. It is an active element in the implementation of a company’s strategic intent, achieve better results, and increase the company’s competitive advantage or value. Project management strategy focuses on the desired strategic results.

 Choosing the right project management methodology for the project is the key deciding factor of your project’s success. The right project management methodology can elevate your project and help the project manager to efficiently manage the project people, processes, and tools.

 So, how do you choose the best suitable Management Methodology? To select the right methodology, you will need to understand what are the types of project management methodology. With this article, you will learn about popular project management methodology and types of projects best suited to the methodology.

While there are project management methodologies a-plenty, I’ve narrowed it down to eight popular ones.

Waterfall Project Management 

Waterfall project management is a sequential, linear process of project management. It consists of several discrete phases. No phase begins until the prior phase is complete, and each phase’s completion is terminal—waterfall management does not allow you to return to a previous phase. It is a very straightforward way to manage a project.

The Waterfall system is the most traditional method for managing a project, with team members working linearly towards a common goal. Each member has a clearly defined role, and none of the phases or goals are expected to change.

One downside to Waterfall project management is that since each step is pre-planned in a linear sequence, the strategy is relatively inflexible. Any change in stakeholder priorities or needs will disrupt the order and require a revision, or possibly an entirely new blueprint.

This methodology stresses the importance of documentation and proper recording of events. The idea is that if a worker was to leave during the development process, their replacement can start where they left off by familiarizing themselves with the information provided on the documents.

Waterfall project management works best for projects with long, detailed plans that require a single timeline. Changes are often discouraged since they are usually very costly.

Waterfall Methodology includes several stages for the project. The typical stages of Waterfall Project Management:

1. Requirements: The manager analyses & gathers all the requirements and documentation for the project.
2. System design: The manager designs the project’s workflow model.
3. Implementation: The system is put into practice and your team begins the work.
4. Testing: Each element is tested to ensure it works as expected and fulfills the requirements.
5. Deployment (service) or delivery (product): The service or product is officially launched.
6. Maintenance: In this final, ongoing stage, the team performs upkeep and maintenance on the resulting product or service.

Originated from the manufacturing & construction industries, its lack of flexibility in design changes in the earlier stages of the development process is due to it becoming exuberantly more expensive because of its structured physical environments.

Best suited for:  Manufacturing and Construction Industries, Long Term projects, Repetitive Projects.

PMI Methodology

PMI stands for the Project Management Institute, a not-for-profit organization for project managers and program managers. PMI was started in 1969 and now has a membership of more than 2.9 million professionals worldwide. This globally recognized certificate assures employers that a person is trained and qualified to manage projects. PMI is also the organization that oversees the documentation of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) within the PMBOK Guide.

PMBOK stands for the Project Management Body of Knowledge and is a set of standard terminology and guidelines for project management. It states that there are five project management process groups that are prevalent in almost every project. They are;

1. Initiating: Defining the start of a new project or new phase of an existing project.
2. Planning: Where the scope of the project, objectives, and how the objectives will be achieved.
3. Executing: Actually, doing the work defined in the project management plan.
4. Monitoring and Controlling: When you need to track, review, and regulate the progress and performance.
5. Closing: Concluding all activities across all Process Groups to formally close the project or phrase.

Along with this, it includes the best practices, conventions, and techniques that are considered the industry standard.

Best suited for EPC Projects, Constructions projects, Engineering Projects, Long Term Projects, Multi-site projects

PRINCE2 Project Management 

PRINCE was derived from an earlier method called PROMPT II (Project Resource Organisation Management Planning Techniques). In 1989 the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) adopted a version of PROMPT II as a UK Government standard for information systems (IT) project management.

PRINCE2 was developed as a UK government standard for information systems projects. In July 2013, ownership of the rights to PRINCE2 was transferred from HM Cabinet Office to AXELOS Ltd, a joint venture by the Cabinet Office and Capita, with 49% and 51% stakes respectively.

 PRINCE2 was released in 1996 as a generic project management method. PRINCE2 has become increasingly popular and is now a de facto standard for project management in many UK government departments and across the United Nations system. It is adopted in many countries worldwide, including the UK, Western European countries, and Australia.PRINCE2 training is available in many languages.

 PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured project management methodology and practitioner certification programme. PRINCE2 emphasises dividing projects into manageable and controllable stages. This methodology follows seven project management process as following.

1. Starting Up a Project, in which the project team is appointed including an executive and a project manager, and a project brief is produced
2. Initiating a Project, in which the business case refined and Project Initiation Documentation
3. Directing a Project, which dictates the ways in which the Project Board oversees the project.
4. Controlling a Stage, which dictates how each individual stage should be controlled, including the way in which work packagesare authorised and distributed
5. Managing Product Delivery, which has the purpose of controlling the link between the Project Manager and the Team Manager(s) by placing formal requirements on accepting, executing and delivering project work.
6. Managing Stage Boundaries, which dictates how to transition from one stage to the next.
7. Closing a Project, which covers the formal decommissioning of the project, follow-on actions and evaluation of the benefits.

 PRINCE2 is based on seven principles while following the processes and this principle cannot be tailored. If a project does not adhere to these principles, it is not being managed using PRINCE2. The following are the seven PRINCE2 principles which can be described as a mindset that keeps the project aligned with the PRINCE2 methodology

1. Continued Business Justification: The business case is the most important document, and is updated at every stage of the project to ensure that the project is still viable. Early termination can occur if this ceases to be the case.
2. Learn From Experience: each project maintains a lessons log and projects should continually refer to their own and to previous and concurrent projects’ lesson logs to avoid reinventing wheels.
3. Defined Roles and Responsibilities: Roles are separated from individuals, who may take on multiple roles or share a role. Roles in PRINCE2 are structured in four levels (corporate or programme management, project board, project manager level, and team level). 

4. Manage by Stages: the project is planned and controlled on a stage-by-stage basis. Moving between stages includes updating the business case, risks, overall plan, and detailed next-stage plan in the light of new evidence.
5. Manage by Exception: A PRINCE2 project has defined tolerances (6 aspects above) for each project objective, to establish limits of delegated authority. If a management level forecasts that these tolerances are exceeded (e.g. time of a management stage will be longer than the estimated time in the current management stage). it is escalated to the next management level for a decision on how to proceed.
6. Focus on Products: A PRINCE2 project focuses on the definition and delivery of the products, in particular their quality requirements.
7. Tailor to Suit Project Environment: PRINCE2 is tailored to suit the project environment, size, complexity, importance, time capability, and risk. Tailoring is the first activity in the process of Initiating A Project and is reviewed for each stage.

Not every aspect of PRINCE2 will be applicable to every project, thus every process has a note on scalability. This provides guidance to the project manager as to how much of the process to apply. The positive aspect of this is that PRINCE2 can be tailored to the needs of a particular project.

Best suited for short term Constructions projects, Engineering Projects

Agile Project Management

Initially rooted in the software development industry, the term was coined in the early 1990s with the “application development crisis” event. Back then, there was a significant lag time of about three years between a business need for an application and the actual software delivery. Often, by the time of the final product release, the technology was already different, or customer requirements had drastically changed. This resulted in many failed projects and sunk costs.

The thought leaders in the software development industry started organizing informal meetings between themselves, determined to find a way to develop software solutions more easily and effectively. Through these meetings, what eventually emerged was the “Agile Manifesto” that changed how we manage projects today.

Agile word derived from the word “agility”, which means “mobility, as well as from the Latin “agere”: “to do, to act”. This signifies the ability to move something forward in a quick way that allows easy changes of direction. So, Agile project management has five essential attributes that form the building blocks of the Agile process:

• Transparency
• Customer focus
• Adaptability
• Sense of Ownership
• Continuous Improvement

Agile is best suited for projects that are iterative and incremental. It’s a type of process where demands and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customers. Agile methodology is made up of 12 key principles and here’s what they are:

1. Satisfy Customers Through on time & Continuous Delivery
2. Accommodate Changing Requirements Even Late in the Project
3. Frequently Deliver Value to the customer (internal as well as external)
4. Remove the Silos of Your Project
5. Execute Projects Around Motivated Individuals
6. Endorse Face-to-face Communication
7. Working Software is the Primary Measure of Progress
8. Maintain a Sustainable Working progress
9. Continuous Excellence Enhances Agility
10. Simplicity is the key
11. Create value through Self-organizing Teams
12. Regularly Reflect and Adjust Your Way of Work to Boost Effectiveness 

Best suited for Software Projects, IT Projects, Finance Related project

Scrum Project Management

Scrum is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.

Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems. Scrum co-creators Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland has written The Scrum Guide to explain Scrum clearly and succinctly.  This Guide contains the definition of Scrum. This definition consists of Scrum’s accountabilities, events, artifacts, and the rules that bind them together. In a nutshell, Scrum requires a Scrum Master to foster an environment where:

1. A Product owner orders the work for a complex problem into a Product Backlog.
2. The Scrum Team turns a selection of the work into an Increment of value during a Sprint.
3. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders inspect the results and adjust for the next Sprint.
4. Repeat

Scrum is simple. It is the opposite of a big collection of interwoven mandatory components. Scrum is not exactly a methodology but is very much effective as other methodologies. Scrum implements the scientific method of empiricism. Scrum replaces a programmed algorithmic approach with a heuristic one, with respect for people and self-organization to deal with unpredictability and solving complex problems.

Although always considered to be a part of Scrum and often written about, in July 2016, the Scrum Values were added to The Scrum Guide. These values include

1. Courage: To do the right thing and work on tough problems.
2. Focus: On the work of the sprint team and the goals of the scrum team.
3. Commitment: People personally committed to achieving the goals of the scrum team.
4. Respect: Scrum team members respect each other to be capable, and independent people.

Openness: The scrum team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work.

Best suited for Software Projects, IT Projects.

Kanban Project Management

Kanban is a popular framework used to implement agile and software development. It requires real-time communication of capacity and full transparency of work. Work items are represented visually on a kanban board, allowing team members to see the state of every piece of work at any time.

It’s a method to manage and improve work across human systems. This approach aims to manage work by balancing demands with available capacity, and by improving the handling of system-level bottlenecks.

It operates on six general practices, which are:

1. Visualization
2. Limiting work in progress
3. Flow management
4. Making policies explicit
5. Using feedback loops
6. Collaborative or experimental evolution

Kanban achieves efficiency by using visual cues that signal various stages of the development process. The cues involved in the process are a Kanban board, Kanban cards, and even Kanban swimlanes for those looking for that extra bit of organization.

• Kanban board: What’s used to visualize the development process, a Kanban board can be either physical (a whiteboard, sticky notes, and markers) or digital. The board’s basic structure are three columns labeled as ‘To-Do, Doing, and Done’ — which is rather self-explanatory.
• Kanban cards: Each Kanban card depicts a work item/task in the work process. Used to communicate progress with your team, it represents information such as status, cycle time, and impending deadlines.
• Kanban swimlanes: Flowing horizontally, Kanban swimlanes are a visual element on the board that allows you to further distinguish tasks/items by categorizing them. Their purpose is to offer a better overview of the workflow.

Best suited for Software development, Product development, Small-sized projects

Lean Methodology

The Project Management Institute sums it up: “To be Lean is to provide what is needed, when it is needed, with the minimum materials, equipment, labor, and space.” Lean manufacturing identifies three types of waste: muda, muri, and mura (known collectively as the 3M).

Lean methodology promotes maximizing customer value, while minimizing waste. It aims to create more value for the customer by using fewer resources. Lean manufacturing principles were developed by Toyota in the 1950s and applied in the 1970s to combat the energy crisis. The term “lean” was coined in the late 1980s.

The five key principles of lean project management

1. Specify value: What is the project’s value in the mind of the customer?
2. Map the value stream: A “value stream” map shows the entire process for creating the product or project. Once this process is mapped, it can be analyzed for waste, such as unnecessary steps that tax resources or compromise quality.
3. Make value flow by eliminating waste: Creating an improvement plan will eliminate the waste identified in the value stream. This plan represents a “future state” for the project’s process.
4. Make value flow at the customer’s demand: The ideal scenario is to move the project forward or create the product when requested by the customer. Get as close to this as possible to reduce inventory and save resources.
5. Embrace continuous improvement in pursuit of perfection: Regularly reassess the project process to eliminate waste and maximizing productivity and efficiency.

Best suited for Manufacturing and Service industries.

Six Sigma Methodology

Conclusion

There is no one-size-fits-all methodology that can be applied to every project. These processes provide benefits especially if chosen correctly to match an organization’s requirements and project goal. A robust project management methodology will help the company to keep things as simple as possible and achieve business objectives as you go along.

Managing a project is not an easy task. From project initiation till the closure, there’s a lot that can go wrong. The right project management methodology will make the project task easier to monitor and effectively manage.

Which project management methodology worked best for your project? Let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

If you enjoyed this blog post, share it with a friend!