Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Finding the Right Project Management Methodology for You

By: Kazon Robinson

Projects are formulated and produced by organizations to gain profit and expand the organization. Every project formulated, whether it is big or small, needs some form of planning because without planning, a project could result in failure.

Fortunately, there is a way to go about that business of creating an outline for a project - Project Management Methodology (PM).  Today, there are various PM methodologies and author Moira Alexander addresses a few very well in her recent article, “How to Pick a Project Management Methodology”. Specifically, three methodologies that stand out from the rest are Agile, Waterfall, and Scrum.


Agile: Alexander writes, “The Agile Methodology was developed for projects requiring significant flexibility and speed… Agile may be best-suited for projects requiring less control and real-time communication within self-motivated team settings.” So, a possible recommendation would be an open space office where communication is faster paced and thoughts are able to exchange faster.

Waterfall: “Used across many industries, most commonly in software development. Waterfall allows for increased control throughout each phase but can be highly inflexible if scope changes may be anticipated later,” according to Alexander. The Waterfall methodology is used for more complex projects being as there is a need for more control throughout to handle the complexity.

Scrum: Scrum is an agile development framework that is more so used for software development but is now generally used in complex projects.

In addition, there are many other PM Methodologies such as Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM), Six Sigma, Crystal, or Feature Driven Development (FDD). This amount of various methodologies helps organizations settle on a certain way of performing a project whether it is complex or simple.

Every methodology works in a business, some work better than in others depending on the situation and if the situation does not always fit the project methodologies framework it can lead to undesirable results. Nevertheless, no project is the “best of the best” and Alexander explains what to look for in a methodology. “When evaluating methodologies, these are only a few of the many factors that should be carefully considered: risks, complexity, constraints, project size, and cost…” Those are some of the factors to consider when looking at different project management methodologies.

In the end, what needs to be focused on is how projects improve or better the whole organization’s objectives. Once you determine the success or failure of those goals, look for the best methodologies that suits your organization’s needs.


About the Author: Kazon Robinson is currently a Marketing Intern at IIR USA and a high school student at All Hallows. Kazon helps oversee and revise the data entry of spreadsheets with information relating to investors, twitter handles, and conferences. He also has experience interacting with other writers from participating in the AH Writers and Authors Club. He has previously worked at Bronxworks Betances Community Center as an Office Assistant where he provided professional service and directions for callers. He can be reached at krobinson@iirusa.com