Project Management

As projects became more complex, people started looking for ways to capture their methods of doing work in repeatable methodologies. There's an enormous amount of project types and thus an enormous amount of different methodologies. I will focus on popular modern-day methodologies, which can roughly be divided into two flavours:

Linear methodologies attempt to solve the problem at hand before executing it, and complete work in sequential phases. Popular examples are PRINCE2 and Waterfall.
Iterative methodologies attempt to solve the problem through execution, going through many short loops of work and refining the solution as the project goes on. Popular examples are Agile and Lean, which propose principles, and Scrum and Kanban, which are processes built on those principles.

💡

For an in-depth explanation of each methodology, click any of the terms or check out the glossary.

The word methodology has been used to describe many different things. Ben Aston defines (2019) four levels of specificity these methodologies operate in, and places the most popular terms in one scheme.

Figure: Scheme of popular project management methodologies ,[object Object],[object Object],. Linear methodologies are yellow, iterative methodologies are green. — Figure: Scheme of popular project management methodologies (Aston, 2019)
. Linear methodologies are yellow, iterative methodologies are green.

Crossovers and Adaptations

Methodologies like Waterfall, Scrum and Kanban are all great in theory, but in reality each business operates differently and processes should be adapted to fit.

Spotify is one such business. It started as a Scrum company but, as it grew, noticed that Scrum's prescriptive processes got in the way. They instead prioritised Agile principles over Scrum practices, allowing each team to adapt it their own way (Kniberg, 2014).

Many of these methodologies share ideas with each other – the notion of building the right thing in the most efficient way is as old as human civilisation. One great example of how these methodologies interlock is the Lean Process Model. It takes the best parts of Design Thinking, Lean, and Agile methodologies and creates a workflow for UX products.

Figure: Lean Process Model by Dave Landis ,[object Object],, adapted by Zeno Kapitein ,[object Object] — Figure: Lean Process Model by Dave Landis (2014), adapted by Zeno Kapitein (2020b)

Personal Experience Case Study: Unstable Connections

The course's final module, Experience Design, incorporated all disciplines from the previous courses and required a lot of planning to arrive at a solution in time.

We employed the Lean Process Model to go through two separate Agile sprints: one pressure cooker and one design sprint. Using a calendar we mapped out deadlines, such as when to start on our pitch. Towards the end of the project we set up a Kanban board to keep track of different deliverables, and split up to work on these tasks separately.

Figure: Our real processes differed from the model, we went through multiple iterations and experimented at opportune times. ,[object Object] — Figure: Our real processes differed from the model, we went through multiple iterations and experimented at opportune times. (Kapitein, 2020b)

Figure: Our Delivery Kanban board, with the traditional three categories. ,[object Object] — Figure: Our Delivery Kanban board, with the traditional three categories. (Goh et al., 2020a)

↓

Next Chapter

Team Dynamics