One Size does not fit all —Especially at Project Management
It is not a big surprise failing projects after misconducting the way of the methodology they are using. Waterfall or Agile? Besides that discussion, complexity is playing a crucial role when you are setting all baselines for your projects. For classification of this complexity, The Stacey matrix provides an overview of how complex a project is. The table basically is up to two things; Requirement (What) and Technology (How) certainties.
There are four categories; simple, complicated, complex, and anarchy.
1)Simple: Everything is known. The product requirement and using technology are clear. For instance, the Production of a plastic component. Step by step, it starts with define requirements, material selection, designing part, and functionality. After CAE Simulation, clearing out mold design and validation. It is on comparable cases from the past and could be used the experience.
Use Method: Waterfall, V-Model
2)Complicated: Known parts are higher than unknown. From the first part, remember you produced a simple plastic component. Think about you are building many of them with different functionality and material with one architecture. The approach to solving still manageable with the plan and closely follow-up issue by issue.
Use Method: Kanban
3) Complex: Unknown parts are higher than knowns. Planning the whole project in front will not help you out. Your requirements are not clear from the start and constantly changing. Let’s assume that your mission is a consumer product that you have to revise every year with new technology. How do you catch up with the pace of Moore’s Law with making a 3-year product development plan? A great way is agile methods of course. It is iterative and adaptive.
Use Method: Scrum
4) Anarchy: Known is very little. Now you are the zone of Kingdom Unknown, Hail the King! From a product perspective, you have some consumer inputs and some technical drafts, however, you do not know how to transform these ideas into a tangible product. Think about an Integrated Circuits (IC). The invention that triggers the development of IC was the computer. IC produced with this technique could have around 5 transistors at most. Thanks to the development of the photolithography technique, it has been possible to fit billions of electronic circuit elements in very small areas. Our smartphones are the result of it.
Use Method: Scrum, Design Thinking, and Lean Startup
One size does not fit all to Project Management. After clarification of your project complexity, use your best practice and avoid verbatim copy project management methods. In my humble opinion, for project management, Agile Methods has many advantages, in contrast, Hybrid Project Management is more adaptable and fluid. Project phase gates have different characters and have their own needed requirements.
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