Hello everyone)

Let's continue our conversation. In the third article, I want to talk about project management methodologies. Just like any production process that results in the creation of a product, project management also has its own methodology, which is essentially a technology for interacting with the result in the form of a target product.

At the moment, all project methodologies can be divided into: traditional (Waterfall), classic (PMBOK), flexible (Agile, Scrum, Kanban) and process (Lean, Lean Six Sigma, Prince2). But since all my articles are devoted to the topic of RP in IT, then I will focus on this direction.

And so, where does it all begin and what is the difference in project management in IT, what are its main aspects.

We live in the era of the beginning of the fifth technological revolution (Industry 5.0), when robotisation and AI are closely integrated into everyday life, and the time it takes to create IT products has been significantly reduced. However, there are still key stages involved in the creation of any IT product:

• Initiation – it all starts with an idea or a need;
• Definition – a vision of the future product is formed;
• Design – the technology for creating the product is determined (how, where, and on what);
• Development – we do what we have defined;
• Testing – we check what we have done;
• PIO (Pilot industrial operation) – involve users in testing;
• IO (Industrial operation) – start using the product by users;
• Service support of the product.

Ignoring any of the listed stages leads to chaos and mess, lack of results and gradual burnout of the project team, so no matter how much the traditional cascade approach (Waterfall) is criticised, but these are the steps that must be taken to achieve the desired goal, and all agile methodologies are essentially the same Waterfall, only with a large number of repeated shortened cycles of the same stages. And again, when the cascade approach is belittled for its length, any experienced manager who has completed projects to the desired result will say that the length and inflexibility of each stage are an unaffordable luxury, and to achieve the desired result, you constantly check it with the client, show what you have done, and address their comments, quickly responding to changes while keeping the project's main aim in mind.

That is, in general, project management in IT in a successful project is a cascade approach (Waterfall) with a large number of repeated cycles with active participation of the customer and users (Agile).

I constantly emphasise that I am talking about the success of the project, because I assume that projects start to achieve their goals, and in my practice only such projects, but there are other results when the conditions of success listed by me are not met and projects bring disappointment and losses. Therefore, my articles are articles about “…experience, the son of hard mistakes…” as our great classic said, the essence and cream of experience, when only what really works remains in practice.