List of Project Management Methods

[MKL]

And as a follow up to my question on SSADM, does anyone have list of ALL the project management methods in common use?

[Silver]

I know of RAD (Rapid Application Development), DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Methodology) and of course SSADM.

[PJW9779]

Good question.
I know only of pmforum.org/prof/gapmp.htm

[NVi]

RAD, SSADM and RUP are on a differnt level to Prince2. They are actually system development methods. The "project management" that is incuded in these methods is "team management" in Prince2 terms and is considered to be focused on delivery of products, where Prince2 is focused on managing the project and the environment of the project.
I believe strongly that delivery focused project management is the main reason why so many projects fail, while delivery is the standard. The idea behind Prince2, customer / supplier and Business Case focus, to me has far better chances for controlled and therefor successful projects.
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Nico Viergever
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[neil]

I agree with most of NVi, apart from the view that delivery driven management is a problem; from experence managing software from a delivery / user centric view point results in more successfull projects. None delivery focused projects tend to lack direction as a result of un clear goals.

RUP is a good example yes it is primarily a systems development process, yet does set good PM targets that can be easily mapped into Prince2 processes. RUP clearly sets the goals of the project as a set of customer deliverables and timelines, giving clear measureable goals and as a result is a very effective mechanism for delivering projects to agreed targets.

[NVi]

Whenever you see projects fail the main problem always seems that the supplier creates something that nobody wanted/expected. I strongly feel that the "standard" way of running projects is the main problem here: delivery methods. The underlying focus is wrong (technology driven): we will create something and after that (or during) we have to make sure that the customer likes it. In a customer/supplier set up (the real Prince2 way and hardly properly recognised) the focus is completely different. As a customer we want something and how do we make sure that our supllier creates what we need. This puts more pressure on the customer and quite rightly so! It is also a far higher level of maturity in project management Of course this view is black and white but on the other hand, the number of failing projects justifies a different approach from what is the current failing (PMI) standard.
_________________
Kind regards
Nico Viergever
Dr.J.Presserstraat 214
2552 LP Den Haag
T: +31 (0)70 4040058
M: +31 (0)6 51 33 42 58
F: +31 (0)70 4040059

[neil]

Ahhhh, missunderstood your argument and I totally agree with you.

Though customers are a big driver for technologies; from the non technical consumer of the lastest gadget to the head of a financial organsiation making decsions on new software. Customers are buzzword driven so technology companies have to keep their products upto date in order to make sales.

On the process side the development communities seem to be as obsesed with new processes as consumers are for new gadgets. We have a plethora of 'Agile' development processes, that seem to be designed for and by developers.

Development managers and boards of directors are dragged in to adopting these processes on the promise of faster to market, demonstratable software in half the time, decreased documentation overhead and increased speed of development. Although there are some situations where non formal processes have a place, in reality these are few.

In most cases companies need good efficent development and management procesess to create good quality products that can be maintained. This is the critical point, it is easy to rush a first release to market; the problem is supporting it and making subsequent releases, in order to do this the architecture and design have to be good and that formality takes time.

[alfred]

[yashar]

SSADM is a Management Information System methodology (MIS). But when it is applied to a project?s management it changes to Project Management Information System. (PMIS).
PM methodologies are FWBS, WBS, Earned Value, CPM, PERT, GERT and GANT analysis.
PMBOK is book of standards to manage PM processes created by Project management Institute (PMI) in 1996.

Yashar Safarzadeh
[No advertising links please]

[NVi]

FWBS, WBS, Earned Value, CPM, PERT, GERT and GANT analysis are all relatively overrated techniques a project manager could use. PMBOK is not a methodology but methodologies can be based on the ideas in PMBOK by PMI. The big problem is that PMBOK describes the practices that most project managers use and (also according to Gartner) most projects fail. Prince2 includes a number of ideas that enable far more and better control. A huge difference is that PMBOK does not talk at all about a project management organisation and the roles involved, which is essential! PMBOK also describes project management from a delivery perspective while Prince2 talks about customer driven projects (the supplier should not manage project). Also PMBOK goes into the overrated techniques very quickly, while Prince2 talks far more about the far more important processes.
A last big differnce is that Prince2 is result driven (products), while PMBOK is activity based. The result is a loss of focus. Activities are not important to the project's customer and can not be measured, while products can.
_________________
Kind regards
Nico Viergever
Dr.J.Presserstraat 214
2552 LP Den Haag
T: +31 (0)70 4040058
M: +31 (0)6 51 33 42 58
F: +31 (0)70 4040059