How to Choose a Project Management Methodology?

What Type of Project Management Methodology is Best?

While attending an Agile conference, I heard a lot of discussion about the types of project management methodology from pure agile teams, waterfall teams, and a combination of the two. Several presenters stressed the importance of being a 100% dedicated agile team. They stated that the only way to be successful is to make sure your team or company follows the Scrum/Kanban/XP/etc. methodology in its purest form. Other presenters called out these statements as false and went on to discuss numerous examples of blended approaches that have worked at their company or with their clients.

How can an organization trying to understand agile figure out the best approach when so many experts in the field have different opinions?

Best Project Management Methodologies

1. Project Structure
2. What About a Blended Approach?
3. Benefits of an Adaptive Approach
4. Choose the Methodology that Works Best for your Organization
5. Sharpen Your Agile and Hybrid Skills Sets

Project Structure

If we, as an organization, want our projects to be more successful in our customers’ eyes, we need to start asking the right questions.  How do we create a project structure that works for our current environment, team, and clientele? Is this a product we need to get to market faster? How can we get our stakeholders/customers more involved? What really defines success?

In today’s environment, many organizations are trying to figure out how to be more “agile” or adaptable. Many organizations are transitioning to the agile approach, kicking off agile pilots, and having great success. Wonderful! But just as many are failing. This is why I’m suggesting that we need to ask the right questions to determine what will be successful within our organizations. What really is the best approach for our environment, on a particular product or project?

What About a Blended Agile Approach?

It is possible to blend agile and traditional project management practices together in the right proportions to fit your project and environment. Blending some of the structure of traditional project management with the fluidity of agile can be quite liberating. I have seen this type of approach work in organizations where there’s resistance to agile among the leaders and mid-management. Leadership support is key when making any type of organizational transition.

Change is very scary to many individuals. It is easier for leaders to buy in to agile practices when the project team is asking, not to throw out all the current processes (which usually have been in place for ten or more years), but to blend the approaches in a way that means more value, quicker release to market, and more satisfied customers and employees.

Benefits of an Adaptive Approach

If you are interested in taking more of an iterative and adaptive approach to project management, consider the following key points:

• Collaborate daily with your key stakeholders.  Communication is critical. Consistent collaboration with your key stakeholders can only make your project more successful. Increased visibility is never a bad thing, and it enhances your ability to succeed on the next three items.
• Emphasize maximizing business value. How can we get to the market more quickly with a minimal viable product?
• Reduce unnecessary documentation. Using an agile approach does not mean there’s no documentation, but there is less documentation than in traditional project management. Figure out what level of documentation is necessary to ensure your leaders, team members, and customers feel comfortable.
• Be more adaptive to change. Customers tell us they know what they want, but they discover what they want when they experience it. Using an iterative approach makes us more adaptive to change requests, but also allows the customer to experience the product as the team is building it.

Choose the Methodology That Works for Your Organization

In conclusion, with proper planning, coaching, and training, organizations can choose a project management methodology that works best for their project teams, customers, and environment. At the conference, most presenters really stressed the importance of working with a qualified agile coach to help assess your organization’s maturity and determine the best approach for your project and environment. Waterfall, agile, and blended approaches all work!

Planning, coaching, and training for any type of project transition are the key to success with any methodology. We all need to drop our preconceived notions that one particular methodology is better than another. Find the one that will make your team and project more viable, productive, and collaborative.

Sharpen Your Agile and Hybrid Skill Set

Regardless of methodology, having a comprehensive understanding of agile and predictive approaches allows you to adapt based upon the project and your business environment.

If you want to run more projects using agile practices or a hybrid approach, RMC has options for you to discover.  RMC has many offerings including our Agile Fundamentals book, available in hard copy or in an online subscription format.  RMC also offers a self-directed Agile Fundamentals eLearning Course that teaches agile project development, practices, tools, and techniques. Our Hybrid Agile eLearning course teaches you what you need to know to combine predictive and agile approaches.

Sources:

https://www.teamwork.com/project-management-guide/project-management-methodologies/