There are many different planning and organisation options available for any successful business, and each may be applied to realise project goals. Many established ones essentially address one kind of management style or project, so it is the responsibility of the organization to choose one that will best benefit its own situation.Once pretty dead set on whether you want to become a project manager, your next step would be looking at various project management methodologies that would suit you and your team.
It cannot be denied that the world of project management methodologies can appear quite intimidating. Either way, with or without a formal project management certification, one could learn this project management course from a reputable institute just like British Academy for training development by way of practical experience chasing innumerable project methodologies, each with its own laws, lists, principles, and a plethora of acronyms.
The appropriate methodologies to choose from will depend on certain factors that will consequently affect how well your choice works out in your instance. Take time to consider factors like project characteristics, team composition, organisational culture, tool availability, and stakeholder involvement levels to ensure that the right methodology is chosen to suit your needs.
What is a project management methodology?
A project management methodology is a set of principles and practices that provide direction by which one organises projects in order to achieve maximum output.
Basically, it's a framework that helps you to manage your project in the best possible way.
Project management is important in organisations and teams, but it's true effectiveness depends on the mapping of the project management methodology to the team type, project, organization, and goals.
Why are there so many types of methodologies in project management?
How can each project be different from the other? Even if one uses the most handy feature provided by a project template that allows replicating such a project on the grounds that it was a past success.
When you combine such varied objective sets beyond different types of teams, production methods, and KPIs to determine where all types of projects within various industries are heading, there are no simple straightforward rules.
Potentially best for one kind of team may become sheer hell for another. Take software example: many developers, by then, started to note how, instead of helping their workflow, these imposed traditional project management techniques were ruining it and their performance and results.
Indeed, software teams were developing a newer style of project management methodology that would address their needs.
Soon, different teams and industries started to modify those newly formed project management practices to be perfectly aligned with their actual needs and concerns. And the list goes on, as many methodologies were adopted in various industries regarding project management and adjusted for different purposes.
What is left is a tower of thousands of project management methodologies. Now how to determine which project management method (or methods, plural) before your team can say is best for you?
How to choose the right project management methodology
At the end of the day, what project management methodology is applicable to your project, team, and organisation? Here is a quick breakdown of some of the considerations that will help you determine where to stay:
Cost and Budget: On a scale of $ to $$$, what kind of budget are you working in? Is there room for that to change if necessary or is it important that it remains within these predetermined limits?Simple: How many people are involved? How many stakeholders? In other words, is your team small, and therefore self-organizing, or are they spread around more than several miles, which will require much more supervision and delegation? Potential to Take Risks: Is it a giant and very serious project that should be carefully managed to deliver Very Serious footage effects? Or is it a little large project where there's some leeway for messing around? Flexibility: Space for changing the scope of the project during the time frame? Or: What about the end goal? Timeline: How much time is granted to deliver on the brief? Do you need a quick turnaround or is it more important that you have a beautifully finished result, no matter how long it takes? Client/stakeholder collaboration: How involved do you need - or want - the client/stakeholder to be in the process? How involved do you expect him to be?Determine your project needs
Figure out all elements your project will need so as to narrow down your options for methodology. For example, wherever goals have not been firmly set, it may be that a more flexible arrangement is warranted; conversely, where the end result is clearly achieved, a more rigid structure may suffice. Additional requirements to think about include:
Type of projectRequirements for team membersStakeholder obligationsClients' or end-users' valueProposed timelineAmount for budgetPMP (Waterfall)
The first option created for IT projects by the UK government in 1996 PMP does not have any specific definition but is an important viewpoint. So what is PMP? The full form of PMP is Project Management Professional which is a certification course administered through the Project Management Institute. Instead of standing in an independent way, PMP sets the standards for project management for people working on high level projects and are more conversant with traditional project management methodology as defined in Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). Although PMBOK covers some few methodologies, nearly all information has been based on the Waterfall methodology.
The oldest and most popularly accepted project management has for many times stood the test of effectiveness validation-an integrated outline that must be followed strictly. It has some basic reference documents, such as the following Requirements :
AnalysisDesignImplementationTestingDeployment Maintenance
This methodology is easily the most recognizable and rigid in its construction, which is why Gantt charts are often used when implementing the Waterfall methodology. This will hold your team to a high standard of production but does not react well to unexpected project scope changes and lacks the flexibility to allow room for error. The Waterfall approach is best suited to smaller projects, those that require extensive documentation or those that have a clear understanding of unchanging requirements.
Agile
Agility is often contrasted with the PMP methodology if only because the two represent a study in opposites. This project methodology aims to be flexible and change quickly if the circumstances demand so. It stresses teamwork and customer satisfaction based on core values: individuals over processes, working software over detailed documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over rigid planning. The Agile methodology subdivides a project into small units that can be delivered in work sessions from design, testing, and quality assurance. Rather than follow an exhaustive requirement gathering exercise before starting the project, it embraces a learn as you go philosophy that relies on constantly adjusting based on feedback and results.
The team members aim to foresee risks and trends in the making and analyze currently obtained results to warrant informed decision making on changes that would better the results. Such a scheme could become strenuous against teams unable to work independently, for there could be scheduling and resource busyness problems. However, the level of flexibility and quick response to ever growing challenges effectively reduce the risks. This has been proven appropriate for creative projects with uncertain outcomes and for teams with great collaboration. In recent times, the use of this PM methodology has grown exponentially, especially in IT based fields like software development.
Scrum methodology
It could be argued that it is better described as a framework rather than a project management methodology.
With Scrum, work is broken down into short cycles named "sprints," which typically span 1 to 2 weeks. At the start of each sprint iteration, work is picked from the backlog. Learn smart scrum methodology project management from British Academy of training development.
Over the period of the sprint small teams are led by a Scrum Master (not to be confused with a project manager) to do performance reviews in a "sprint retrospective," where they will decide what it is they would like to improve on before the next sprint starts.
Consider the project management strategy if:You're in the middle of constant improvement.
This project management methodology may not be directly proportional to your material specifications. You do not have full team dedication.