Project Management Made Easy for Managers
Understand the Two Basic Approaches to Projects for Project Managers
Dec 15, 2008
Managers leave the business of project management to the experts: project managers. Whilst this is both sensible and effective use of resources it carries dangers that need to be recognised and avoided. Those dangers are essentially that either the wrong project management approach is used or the wrong project manager is selected or both.
Project Management Methodologies
In essence, project management is a set of methods used to initiate, plan, organise and manage the project through to completion. Projects by definition are temporary in nature with a defined start and finish. Two organisations have risen to prominence in defining the methods:
- Project Management Institute - PMI is the leading global association for the project management profession. Since its founding in 1969, it has been at the forefront of working with business to create project management standards and techniques that work.
- UK Office of Government Commerce created PRINCE2. PRINCE2 has been widely adopted and adapted by both the public and private sectors and is now the UK's de facto standard for project management. There is also a rapidly growing international interest. PRINCE2 is designed to incorporate the requirements and experiences of existing users around the world.
Project Management Waterfall Approach
In simple terms both of these project management methodologies use a well defined sequence of events and deliverables to provide a framework structure for any project to follow with the specific content and details tailored to the individual project. That sequence is often referred to as a “waterfall” and is essentially:
- Initiation and scoping project – starting a project and defining what it will do
- Project planning – planning the schedule, resources and cost needed
- Requirements and analysis – defining the business need in detail and analysis of the solution
- Build or implementation – creating the solution
- Test – testing that the solution works
- Delivery – delivering the solution to its target audience
- Close – closing down the project
Waterfall Pros and Cons
- Business need and requirements are well understood and clear
- Solution must be compliant with applicable regulations
- Expected longevity of solution requires high level of quality or documentation
- Solution takes longer to deliver
- Delivering in one go creates increased level of risk of failure
- Business needs or requirement change and solution is no longer or less relevant
In contrast to the waterfall approach, which goes through this sequence once, is the iterative approach. The iterative approach goes through the sequence again and again or iterates over the sequence and rather than the project delivering everything in one go it delivers everything as a series of deliverables. Examples of iterative methodologies include DSDM: Dynamic Systems Development Methodology, RUP: Rational Unified Process and Agile.
Iterative Pros and Cons
- Business need and requirements needs to be evolved
- Solution must be delivered and exploited quickly or miss the window of opportunity
- Faster delivery allows solution to be exploited earlier
- Solution becomes too reactive and subject to whimsical change
- Too many single solutions provided creating a more complex environment for the business user to use each individual solution
- Quality may be sacrificed to deliver quickly
Each approach to project management has strengths and weaknesses and each should be used based on their strengths. Understanding their weaknesses allows the manager to also ensure that project managers build safeguards or risk mitigation plans to avoid the weaknesses and potential problems.
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