Which Framework is the Best?

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Agile   Scope Management   Scrum  

Ever stop to ponder all the different project management frameworks that have been developed over the years and which one you should be using in your organization? Is there really one best framework out there? Just consider this partial list of different ways to conduct projects:

• Command and Control
• Agile
• Scrum
• Extreme
• Critical Chain
• Event Chain
• Prince2
• Process-based
• Hermes Method
• Total Cost Management Framework
• Team Software Process
• V-Model
• Logical Framework Approach

The list is dizzying, and each method has its pros and cons. To be a master of all these methods is probably not a probable endeavor. Each of these approaches has its own premises and levels of complexity. On larger, more complex projects, it often turns out that a hybrid approach that combines the best of these frameworks to specific components of the project works best. However, to do that requires at least a basic knowledge of each, the trade-offs in play. While it is beyond the scope of this article to go into all these approaches, I have selected a few of the mainstream ones to review and contrast, specifically:

• Command and Control (most traditional framework)
• Agile (most popular alternative framework)
• Scrum
• Extreme

First, it is important not to confuse any specific framework with levels of…

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