What is a Project Management Methodology?
A project management methodology is a set of ideas/solutions that were created to facilitate the work in a company. It is pretty much a set of rules that the team should abide by, in order to finish their tasks and projects in a timely manner. There are plenty of different methodologies that are supposed to lead every worker through the process of starting, developing, and finishing a project. The new ones are constantly being developed to catch up with the ever-growing world of business. The key point is to find the one that applies to the project we are working on.
That is why it is of utmost importance to check the project management methodology before we decide to use it. There are many factors to consider while doing do – for example, the type of work that we are doing or the size of our team. Many specialists say that the effectiveness of project management methodology depends on types and sizes of a project. Also, let’s remember that human factor is what’s most important in the company, so we should not blindly follow whatever we learn from a particular PM methodology – but it is up to us to adapt our workflow and get things done. However, the project management methodology is there to help, so we should use it to its fullest potential. This said, let’s take a look at some of those:
Oh, before we go with the list. You should know that we already described five most popular Project Management Methodologies in one of our articles. Those were: Waterfall, Agile, Prince2, Quality Management, and Scrum. You can read a lot about them in the article:
Choose a Project Management Methodology for You!
Be sure to take a look!
One more thing! We couldn’t have missed this opportunity, as we also have an article on PM Methodologies that is dedicated completely to Agile – the most popular of them. See it here. And let us remind you that apart from PM Methodologies, there is also project management and time tracking software that can help your company a lot! TimeCamp will soon transform into it from a regular time tracking software. You can already , do not miss this chance and be one of the first to try it out!
PM Methodologies worth checking out.
Now, it’s time we went to the main part of our article, and describe other Project Management Methodologies that we found, here they come:
Critical Path Method (CPM)
This one is pretty simple (and old, it’s almost 70 years old now!) It bases on the logical assumption that before we start working on a task, we should finish all the previous ones. After all, our work is usually connected – tasks may depend on each other. When we manage to properly bind them together (for example, by drawing a graph presenting their dependents), that’s where our critical path appears.
We can use it to accurately identify the most important actions that we should take, as well as resources to use. At the same time, we can get rid of those burdens that, after we developed a critical path, turned out to be of a minor importance.
Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM)
It is very similar to the one above, but it focuses primarily on the resources needed to complete tasks and projects. The first step that we must do is to create a plan of the project and identify our main goals that absolutely vital for the project to be finished. With this knowledge, we can appropriately divide our resources, and adequately set the time limit necessary to complete the tasks.
The PMI/PMBOK “Method”
This one does not exactly fit into the category of PM Methodologies but there are quite a lot of companies and organizations who use this method to finish their projects. To put it simply, it is about dividing the process of developing the project into five groups: initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. Each phase needs a separate approach, and each must be completed before we go to the next.
Kanban
Developed in 1940’s in the Toyota factories, it’s gotten its name from the visual system of cards – “Kanban”. Nowadays, it is used to visualize tasks and projects, to make them more approachable. Usually, it is done through sticky notes and whiteboards but there were also dozens of apps created just to provide users with the customizable cards and boards to facilitate their work.
Adaptive Project Framework
As the name suggests, this methodology was designed to adapt to the modern requirements of today’s companies that operate on many different types of software. Basing on product requirements, as well as its functions, sub-functions, and features, the strategic project goals are being defined. Then, the work is divided into stages and every stage is analyzed and evaluated, once it’s finished. What is more, at the beginning of each stage, the project’s scope can be changed by the stakeholders.
Summing up
Do not worry, there are still many other PM methodologies to discuss. It’s just that it takes some time to get familiar with each and every single one of them, as they are usually pretty complex. That’s why this article will come in two parts. In this one, we focused on some of the traditional, sequential methodologies, and those of the Agile family that we did not mention in our Agile Article.
Next time, we are going to focus on the Process-based Methodologies, and on the Change Management Methodologies (with a few additional ones). If you are interested in the topic, you can also take a look at our post about the War Room Concept in project management. We hope that our articles will be useful and helpful in managing employees, leading a company, and just keeping your office under control. We sure do believe that our software, TimeCamp, can help you with that!