“First, have a definite, clear practical idea; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” –Aristotle

The term “Project Management Methodology” was first used in the early 1960s when many companies started to feel the need to find a way to conduct business in an organized fashion. This is how the term “project” became widely used in Corporate America.  Companies wanted to have a better way to communicate and collaborate to ensure teams would be more productive. Certainly, just like anything else in business, the meaning of the term has changed throughout the years.  If you google what is a project management methodology today, this is how it will be defined:

Project Management Methodology is a strictly defined combination of logically related practices, methods and processes that determine how best to plan, develop, control and deliver a project throughout the continuous implementation process until successful completion and termination. It is a scientifically-proven, systematic and disciplined approach to project design, execution and completion.”

In a nutshell, a project management methodology has become essential in Corporate America for the successful execution of projects.  Only by following a methodology it is possible to:

1. Gather the needs of the stakeholders of a project.
2. Find a common format or language so that all members of the project can have a clear understanding of what is needed from them.
3. Estimate the cost of the project and be accurate.
4. Discover and address risks and issues.
5. Complete and share deliverables with the company management and executive team.
6. Document lessons learned as reference for future projects.

Thus, we can conclude that using a Project Management Methodology is essential for the success of any project.  Project management has evolved; likewise, project management methodologies have been developed.  I have been devoted to project management for over 25 years having the opportunity to work as project manager in organizations that would use the waterfall method, the agile method, and even the scrum method.  These three methodologies vary in how the project will be started, executed, and completed.

These days, the “trending” word is Agile.  Everyone talks about Agile. But is Agile truly a project management methodology?  If you do some research, you will find that Agile is not a methodology per se.  Agile is just a set of principles for developing software.  Such principles are set out in the Agile Manifesto–the golden rule for software developers.  The Agile Manifesto states the four key values and twelve principles that the authors believe software developers should use as the basis for their work.

Before Agile came to the scene, the methodology traditionally used was Waterfall.  That was the trend for many years until the Agile approach came out.  As compared to Agile, the Waterfall model involves a series of steps for the design, development, and delivery of a product or service.  With Waterfall you have the benefits of milestone-based planning and team building.  The key features of Waterfall are processes and tools, documentation, contract negotiation, and follow a plan. Below is a high-level summary of the differences between the two methods:

Why is my project failing?

Unfortunately, many organizations choose to apply the trending methodology instead of using the methodology that better fits their business needs and, most importantly, their corporate culture.  Attention is not focused on using the right methodology for the successful implementation of any project.  However, employing Agile in an environment that is more focused on processes and tools, documentation, contract negotiations and following a plan might be a disaster recipe to any project implemented. Likewise, this may also happen to organizations that have a more modern approach to complete the work, where team members like to interact and cooperate with each other and quickly respond to change without having to deal with too much documentation.

Corporations should be aware that in the end the resources assigned to the project are the ones that will be doing the work; and if they try to carry out a project using a methodology that does not fit the corporate culture, the project will eventually fail.

In summary, organizations should use the methodology that better fits their culture and needs regardless of any trends.  How can organizations define culture then?  Just look around, think about the vision and mission of your organization.  That should definitely help kick off.