What is project management?
Project management is the practice of managing a project. It is broken down into several phases and the most common are ideation, planning, execution, oversight, and delivering the work for the project to reach specific goals and meet timelines. That may sound simple, but there is a lot that goes into it at every stage of the process.
Project Management Methodologies
With project management, the same as life, there are many ways to reach the destination. There are a variety of methodologies you can implement based on your team and project needs. Here are some of the most common ones:
Waterfall Project Management Methodology
One of the most common traditional methods for managing projects and the one that is simplest to understand. This method is that one task must be completed before the next one begins. Each task is in a connected sequence of items that at its sum is the completed deliverable.
A Real-World example when you are building a house - you must first lay the foundation, then build the structure, then the roof, and so on.
Critical Path Method (CPM):
This method is based on the concept that there are some tasks you can’t start until a previous one has been finished. When you string these dependent tasks together from start to finish, you plot out your critical path. By identifying and focusing on this critical path allows project managers to prioritize and allocate resources to get the most important work done, and reschedule any lower priority tasks that may be clogging up your team’s bandwidth.
Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM):
This is a methodology that puts a primary focus on the resources needed to complete the project’s tasks by adding resource availability to the critical path. It also builds buffers of time around these tasks into the project’s schedule, which helps ensure the project meets its deadlines.
Agile Project Management Methodology:
This methodology is very popular these days and in general prioritize shorter iterative cycles and flexibility. The core of the agile methodology was developed in the early 2000s with four main values:
- To focus on Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
With these methodologies in mind, you can learn more about the different options and what would be the best for you and your team. Just a note, this will be a journey - and sometimes the method you select in the beginning may not be the ideal one to continue with. Be open to being agile to which method would work.
There are also a variety of tools you can use to make executing your projects more effective. Learn more about Project Management tools and how to work remotely.
