Don't Worship a Methodology

Many Project Managers get overly involved with following a methodology to the detriment of managing a project to a useful, praiseworthy completion. If you used a certain format in your last job, studied it in school, or obtained a certification in it, you may feel tempted to rigorously establish all the processes and documents your textbook mentions, exactly as they are described. This is a dangerous pitfall.

Required level of effort: Working thoroughly through all the processes contained in reference materials may require a lot of administrative effort from every team member. Are you sure you have considered all those hours in your time and budget estimates? You certainly don't want to put in place a fantastic set of procedures which document that your project is failing because of the time you took to prepare them.

Executing company's culture: How familiar is your team with those specialized processes? Will you have to train them? Is that training budgeted? Are they interested? What about functional managers and other company departments with which you will have to deal? Do your processes conflict with formally or informally established company's processes and habits? Such conflicts could be a risk to the project.

Project focus: The focus of the project manager must be the successful completion of the project, which in a software project is primarily linked to delivering the software. All the project management knowledge you have at your disposition is a means, not an end. Besides, your team will naturally give importance to the things you, as a project manager, give importance. If your focus is the full establishment and compliance with all the project management processes, that will be the focus of your team, too. And then who will create the software?

Virtual or Geographically distributed team. If all of your team members are not co-located, it may be very difficult to introduce and enforce mandatory procedures for them to follow. Their hardware and software, as well as other technology, may make compliance with your demands difficult or even impossible. Narrow your expectations, if necessary, when having remote teams deliver the products or services you need from their small portion of the overall project.

In the end, no project management book or methodology you feel compelled to follow is more important than your good sense. You should go through a product analysis, a contract analysis, a first approach to a risk analysis, an interview with your major stakeholders (Client and Sponsor), and then choose your project management strategy.

Try to document it for yourself, with a statement such as “I plan to manage the project this way because…”. This will help you adjust your strategy in the case the root reasons for your decision change. Based on the needs of the project, you can determine which processes are most important and should be implemented thoroughly and which processes might deserve a lighter approach. In the end, a good project management plan is all about being effective and keeping it simple.