Don’t Shoehorn Your Projects

  Decision Making   Leadership   Stakeholder Management   ProjectsAtWork  

The best process for your project should be determined by careful consideration of key factors, including overall complexity, the level of risk involved, and time-to-market requirements. Often, a flexible hybrid approach fits best, but it must agreed upon by management and the team before the project starts.

There is an old saying, if the shoe fits, wear it. But when it comes to project management, there are many companies that try to fit every project into the same size shoe.

I wear a size nine-and-a-half shoe. When I try to cram my foot into something smaller it hurts. Likewise if I put on a larger shoe it feels uncomfortable, flops around and causes me to trip over things. A large floppy shoe is certainly not something I would want to wear if I were in a race. The same can go for trying to use the wrong size process for projects.

Putting aside the debate of waterfall method versus an agile process, the waterfall method still offers the best choice for many companies based on their type of projects and the needed levels of control. In conjunction with the waterfall method, a Toll Gate process sometimes referred to as stage gates, is often implemented. The sequential nature of these stages breaks work up into defined phases that allow management the opportunity to review projects at each stage. These decision points are used to determine if the project is ready to …

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