Proyect Management: Agile Project Management and PRINCE Metodology

According to the Oxford dictionary (2014), a project can be defined as “An individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim”. While the Association of Project Management defines a project as “A unique, transient endeavour, undertaken to achieve planned objectives, which could be defined in terms of outputs, outcomes or benefits.” (Apm, n.d.).

Project management can then be defined as the use of certain skills and applications to effectively and efficiently achieve a project goal and improve an entity’s ability to perform in competing markets. (PMI, 2014).

Great Britain: Office of Government Commerce (2009), defines project management as planning, delegating control and monitoring of a project to achieve quality goals on time, budget and within the agreed scope.

In order to achieve a successful project, a number of project management techniques have to be employed. This is where the concept of project methodologies comes in.

Over the years there has been discovery and evolution of various project management methodologies or approaches. These methodologies have been adapted to solve different project types and scenarios and often exist in several variations. However there are a number of fixed concepts that are constant with all PM methodologies and these are;

- Time

- Scope

- Cost

The focus of this report is on two of these methodologies.

Agile

The agile methodology is a lightweight, less traditional project method that occurs in upward repetitive cycles till the completion of a project. This methodology is mostly applied in the realm of information technology and software development. Agile is typically used for small to mid-scale projects or products but it has been shown to work and...

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... Command and control (Multiple authority)

4 Flexible (Less Pressure) Rigid (Pressure)

5 Linear development process Short iterations

6 Requirements specified at the start Users carried along for the whole process

Conclusions

In the world of more complicated projects where requirements often change on a daily basis affected by trends and competition. A methodology that allows flexibility at varying stages is advisable.

Works Cited

Beck, K., Beedle, M., Van Bennekum, A., Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., & Thomas, D. (2001). Manifesto for agile software development.

Royce, W. (1970, August). Managing the development of large software systems. In proceedings of IEEE WESCON (Vol. 26, No. 8).

Livermore, J. A. (2007, March). Factors that impact implementing an agile software development methodology. In SoutheastCon, 2007. Proceedings. IEEE(pp. 82-86). IEEE.