Project Management Methodologies
The major practice to start, plan, execute, control and finally close the complete team work to eventually attain all the specific goals or objectives of a project and to meet the respective success criteria of that specific project within the provided resources and time (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The allocation of the necessary inputs are optimized and then they are applied for meeting the previously defined objectives. The most popular and significant project management methodologies are scrum methodology, agile methodology, PMBOK, waterfall methodology, crystal method, lean method, extreme programming and several others. Amongst these, PMBOK consists of ten major knowledge areas (Burke, 2013). This report would be demonstrating the comparison or contrast between agile methodologies and project management body of knowledge methodology.
The methodology of project management provides various services to the project managers or project teams with a significant set of standards for the purpose of initiating as well as managing the individual projects (Nicholas & Steyn, 2017). The project management methodology comprises of the various definitions, guidelines as well as templates for the several activities of project management that are required to be executed for delivering the successful projects (Leach, 2014).
The PMBOK or project management body of knowledge can be stated as the complete collection of procedures, guidelines, terminologies and the best practices, which could be solely accepted as the standards in the entire industry of project management (Hwang & Ng, 2013). Since, the body of knowledge is continuously growing for the discovery of new methodologies of practitioners; the project methodologies should be up graded and disseminated. Some of the most significant disciplines of this project management are financial forecasting, planning methodology, budgeting method, management science and organizational behaviour (Kerzner, 2018). This type of methodology is being utilized in all project types.
The major characteristics of the methodology of PMBOK are provided below:
i) Helps in Providing Guidelines: PMBOK guide is responsible for providing the major guidelines of projects for the users.
ii) Easier Execution of Projects: The projects could be promptly and properly executed with PMBOK by not involving any specific issue (Martinsuo, 2013).
iii) Better Monitoring or Controlling: The third important characteristic of the PMBOK methodology is that the projects could be easily monitored and controlled and hence would be termed as one of the effective and efficient methodologies.
The main disadvantage of this PMBOK methodology is that it eventually consumes excessive time as well as other resources, which makes the project execution often costly for the user.
There are ten distinct areas of this project management methodologies, which are
i) Project integration management,
ii) Project scope management,
iii) Project schedule management,
iv) Project cost management,
v) Project quality management,
vi) Project resource management,
vii) Project communications management,
viii) Project risk management,
ix) Project procurement management and
x) Project stakeholder management (Schwalbe, 2015).
The first knowledge area of PMBOK methodology is project integration management. The various tasks, which hold the total project altogether and then integrate it into the unified project. The first and the foremost step of the project integration management is the development of project charter (Rose, 2013). It helps in providing authorization to the respective project manager. Then the project management plan is developed. This is distributed as well as approved by the proper stakeholders like project sponsors and the alterations are tracked by the change log. The direction and management of the project work and the control of this project knowledge is also required here. Hence, the project is ensured that it would be completed on time and budget (Kerzner, 2017). The monitoring or controlling of the project work is the next important step, where the Earned Value Analysis is being performed and the project changes are identified. Next, the integrated changing control is performed and finally project is completed.
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)
The second area would be the management of project scope, which involves the scope of project. Since the scope changes are considered as the vital causes of the project change, it is extremely vital that all the project limitations are well defined and are monitored properly. At first the scope management is being planned and then the requirements are collected (Morris, 2013). In the third step, the work breakdown structure is being created and the scopes are validated. During the monitoring or control phase, there is a formal acceptance of all deliverables and the client specifications are also checked here. Finally, the respective project scope is being controlled and this project scope is completed and the current status of the project is checked eventually.
The third knowledge area is project schedule management. Hence, the Earned Value Management or EVM helps in determining the status of the project at regular intervals of project. The first and the most important step in this schedule management is planning of schedule management. Then the major activities are defined properly by creating the WBS in the scope management area (Heldman, 2018). The third step is the activity sequencing. There are four orders of this schedule like finish to start, finish to finish, start to start and finally start to finish. In the fourth step, the activity durations are estimated and the schedule is developed. Finally, the project schedule is controlled.
The entire project budget is estimated with the help of this cost management. This budget is established with the major estimating techniques and could be monitored for ensuring that there is no required changes in the project. The first step is the planning of cost management and then the costs are estimated (Edwards & Bowen, 2013). The cost of all the tasks are estimated and the budget is determined. Finally, the costs are controlled here and the project status is determined.
The project quality management can be stated as another important knowledge area of PMBOK, where quality of the project is determined by this. The first and the foremost step in this quality management is the proper planning of the quality management. This comprises of the quality specification for all the products and services (Eskerod & Jepsen, 2016). Then the project quality is managed and finally it is controlled before ensuring the deliverable quality.
Resource management helps in executing the project by using proper and relevant resources. In the beginning, the resource management is being planned and the activity resources are being estimated. After estimating, these resources are acquired and a project team developed (Alias et al., 2014). Then this project team is properly managed for ensuring the production is maximum and the clients are satisfied.
The proper communication is also important for the projects to ensure the timely and correct planning, collecting, storage, retrievals, monitoring of the important information of project. The respective project manager and stakeholders should communicate with one another so that the execution of project is easier.
According to the PMBOK, the project risk management can be defined as the specific management of each and every uncertain condition or event that can bring either positive or negative effect over the various project goals and objectives (Besner & Hobbs, 2013). The most significant problems for this project are the perfect identification as well as management of the risk management.
Characteristic of PMBOK Methodology
The project procurement management is stated as the subsequent creation of the various relationships with any other vendor and supplier for their respective service and good, which is needed to complete the project properly (Rose, 2013). There are eventually five distinctive steps within this typical procedure of project procurement management and these are initiation and planning, selecting the correct vendor, writing the basic contract, monitoring the progress and finally closing as well as completing this project.
The stakeholder management of project is the tenth and the final knowledge area of the PMBOK methodology (Heldman, 2018). A proper management and control of all the stakeholders’ expectation is extremely important for reducing the various project conflicts that occur due to the dissimilar ideology and expectations of the stakeholders.
The agile methodologies can be defined as the specific practices that substantially promote the constant iteration of the testing and development for the complete SDLC or software development life cycles (Hwang & Ng, 2013). These types of methodologies are quite efficient and effective in comparison to unpredictability of construction of the software. Agile methodologies are mainly utilized for the projects of software development.
The most significant characteristics of these agile methodologies are provided below:
i) ProvidesBetter Quality: Agile methodologies provides better quality of project and this is considered as the first as well as the most significant characteristic of these methodologies (Burke, 2013). The testing is integrated within the respective project life cycles and hence daily inspections are being enabled.
ii) ProvidesBetter Visibilities: The next significant characteristic of the agile methodologies would be that it provides better visibilities to the project. The several principles subsequently encourage the client or users’ active involvement in the project.
iii) Easier Identification as well as Resolution of the Problems: The several project problems could be easily recognized and then resolved without involving much complexities within the methodologies (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).
iv) Allows Easy Changes: Agile methodologies allow changes in all the stages of project management since the project plan is not made in earlier stages.
The most significant demerits of these methodologies are the lesser predictability as well as the lack of the needed documentation.
The numerous agile methodologies comprise of similar features and benefits. However, all of them have their own terminology, tactic or practice (Nicholas & Steyn, 2017). The major examples of these agile methodologies are the scrum, crystal, Kanban and various others.
Scrum can be stated as the framework of agile project management with wider application for properly managing and also controlling the increasing as well as iterative project of all kinds (Schwalbe, 2015). This Scrum methodology has also garnered the increasing popularity in the community of software development for its simplicity, capability of acting as a wrapper and even for the proven productivities for all the engineering practices that are being eventually promoted by all other methodologies of the agile framework.
Kanban methodology, could visualize over the work flow and also limit the quantity of the work in progress or WIP and even within the development of this flow (Edwards & Bowen, 2013). Kanban controls the perfect creation of their products, by simply providing a major focus over the constant delivery of project and not overloading the respective development team.
Areas of PMBOK Methodology
The crystal method mainly focuses on the primary six features, which are people, interaction, communities, communications, skill and talent. The specific project process is taken into consideration as a secondary aspect within this specific methodology (Eskerod & Jepsen, 2016). For the agile environments, the crystal methodology focuses over the regular integrations, configuration managements and also in the automatic testing. The crystal methodology is utilized in the short-term projects.
Conclusion:
Therefore, from this discussion, it could be concluded that project management methodology can be defined as the majorly defined combination of all types of logic associated practices, methodologies and processes that are extremely helpful to determine the procedure of how well the project planning, developing or management can be completed for the projects. The procedure of how this project can be delivered in the continuing deployment for the proper starting or completion of the project. The success of the techniques, methods, approaches, processes and technologies are ensured with the project management methodology. The project management framework is being utilized by the project managers for ensuring success within the project. The project methodology helps in providing a basic skeleton for the purpose of describing all the major steps so that project management gains the clarified ideology of the deliverables as per client specifications, schedule or budget. The stakeholder requirements could be defined easily and accurate cost estimates should be taken into consideration. With a proper project management methodology, the respective project conflicts could be easily eradicated. PMBOK is the one of the most traditional methodology of project management that provides guidelines to the project manager for easier execution of project. This report has described the comparison of PMBOK methodology and agile methodologies by providing proper and relevant details.
References:
Alias, Z., Zawawi, E. M. A., Yusof, K., & Aris, N. M. (2014). Determining critical success factors of project management practice: A conceptual framework. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 153, 61-69.
Besner, C., & Hobbs, B. (2013). Contextualized project management practice: A cluster analysis of practices and best practices. Project Management Journal, 44(1), 17-34.
Burke, R. (2013). Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.
Edwards, P., & Bowen, P. (2013). Risk management in project organisations. Routledge.
Eskerod, P., & Jepsen, A. L. (2016). Project stakeholder management. Routledge.
Heldman, K. (2018). PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons.
Hwang, B. G., & Ng, W. J. (2013). Project management knowledge and skills for green construction: Overcoming challenges. International Journal of Project Management, 31(2), 272-284.
Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Leach, L. P. (2014). Critical chain project management. Artech House.
Martinsuo, M. (2013). Project portfolio management in practice and in context. International Journal of Project Management, 31(6), 794-803.
Morris, P. W. (2013). Reconstructing project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Nicholas, J. M., & Steyn, H. (2017). Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.
Rose, K. H. (2013). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Fifth Edition. Project management journal, 44(3), e1-e1.
Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
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