Three Styles Of Project Management

Most people are aware that project management has become necessary in order to run a project smoothly, but it is also important to choose the right style of project management for your business and for your specific project. Here is a breakdown of the main types of project management:

Traditional

The traditional mode of project management adopts a phased approach, where certain steps are carried out in a certain sequence. There are usually five steps in the process, which are initiation, planning, manufacture, monitoring and close, although some projects require additional phases such as pre planning, whilst others may remove phases depending on the type of project. They may not necessarily go in the order prescribed above and the monitoring phase in particular may occur in several phases. When related to software development traditional project management is often referred to the waterfall mode.

Critical Chain Project Management

In Critical Chain Project Management the main focus is on the resources required to complete the tasks within a project and the project in its entirety, and takes its foundations from the theory of constraints. When managing a project using Critical Chain methodologies, the way in which uncertainty is managed and controlled is different from the way it is managed in Traditional Project Management. Uncertainty is managed by multi tasking, starting tasks in a timely fashion , and using other time saving methods when adopting Traditional PM, whereas Critical Chain looks to manage uncertainty by scheduling backwards from the desired completion date, using buffers and estimating timescales by looking at averages.

Extreme Project Management

Extreme project management is often viewed as the most maverick style, and is usually applied to particularly complex or uncertain projects. Extreme PM is much more elastic in it's approach and is concerned with the human elements of a project, such as project stakeholders, rather than formality and precise planning. Strong people management skills are a must for a project manager adopting this methodology as a large portion is related to managing human interactions and communication.

About the Author

Whichever style of project management you decide to use project management software, can help your project run more smoothly. By adopting software with anissue tracker you can react to issues more efficiently.