How Many Project Management Methodologies are there??
Anonymous
I'm curious to know how many methodologies there actually are for Project Management. Could someone tell me what all the methodologies are so I don't give blank looks when someone tells me one I've never heard of. Saving Changes...
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Anonymous
The initial answer is "lots"
Best bet is to search "Project Management" across the web.
Keep in mind there are 2 key components. They are lifecyles (the steps you go through) and things you manage on the way.
Think of it like this a project starts in Lodon stops in Paris and finshes in Rome.. The life cycle are the key points you stop at.
The other bit are the things you manage where ever you are on the trip. things like Do I still have enough money? Are the people around me still doing all the things i need to do.
You will find lots of versions of a life cycle and lots of different ways of defining the things you have to manage. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
I am happy with the merit and demerits of the waterfall, spiral, v, b and reverse engineering life cycle models BUT what are the alternative life cycle models? are we now talking about structured models like RAD? Saving Changes...
Here's a brief, in PDF format, that reviews various application life cycles. This brief is not, by all means complete, but a starting point. Saving Changes...
My question concerns the ERP project. They tend to be large and affecting all parts of an enterprise, and tend to be deployed in a "big bang" or all-at-once type transition. With all the talk about extreme PM and breaking deployment into smaller chunks, does anyone have some good lessons learned or best practices for applying that approach to ERP projects? Saving Changes...
Mike Cooper PMPPrincipal Project Manager (retired, sort of)| New England Project ServicesWestford, Ma, United States
The initial question referred to project management methodologies. To address this I would not focus on the project lifecycle itself. PMI's PMBOK defines the general project management knowledge areas pretty well, but it is independent of lifecycle. A specific implementation of a project management methodology that is readily available is PRINCE2. more information from www.prince2.com. This is gaining in acceptance in Europe, where it is sometimes a prerequisite for a project manager to be PRINCE2 certified. Most major corporations that execute many projects, either internally or for external clients, have developed some kind of project management methodology, so there are in fact numerous variations on a theme out there. I have some freely available templates with some supporting process for IT service companies on my website, but a collection of templates is NOT a methodology.
I believe distinction has to be made between a project management methodology (telling us how to plan, organize, control etc... the work) and a "development cycle" methodology which explain what steps to conduct for delivering the "product" of the project. It is more product content related. General confusion does exits between Project Management Methodology and Development Methodology. Keeping this in mind PMBOK offers a "real" project management methodology. Many other methodologies mix project management and developement activities & deliverables, thus maintaining the confusion.
Also, I believe people tend to mix few things when they come to talk about methodology. They generally mix methodology, techniques & tools. Here, methodology is seen as a "recipe", telling us ingredient to use, the sequence and steps to conduct to improve the probability of success. Technique is a proposed way of doing or conducting a specific activities (ex: brainstorming facilitation, project review meeting, JAD session etc) and finally tool will help you to be more productive (ex: MS project, templates etc). Saving Changes...
Following Mike's example, and Alain's definition, I'll propose Critical Chain-based project management (including it's applications for both single- and multi-project environments) as an identifiable, coherent "methodology."
To expand on Alain's "recipe" metaphor, the PMBOK Guide provides more of a grocery store or buffet table that contains tools and techniques for performing certain processes (courses), and an overall menu of courses, but leave it up to the PM to pick and choose the individual dishes and ingredients. A coherent methodology provides a proven recipe of ingredients that can be demonstrated to go well together. Picking and choosing from the PMBOK Guide one approach for scheduling and another approach for tracking can result in the equivalent of skewered sea-urchin in chocolate sauce.
Of course the intend for the usage of this metaphor was to try to highlight the difference between a methodology, a technique and a tool because people tend to be confused about that when they discuss methodology. A good methodology proposes all of them. A good methodology is also a complete "recipe" that stands together and I agree that taking only pieces here and there might result in a incomplete and unefficient usage or implementation of the methodology. PMBOK offers a complete project management methodology. I used it in few occasions to design a more suitable methodology according to the context where it has to be implemented. Saving Changes...
