Project Management Quality Methodologies

Agile Project management is one of the industries dominating methodology for project management in IT. It is an incremental and iterative way to manage the build and design activities for constructing an IT product, services, and project development in manner which is highly interactive and flexible. In this methodology, scope is defined in granularity that is appropriate with time horizon and checked with the agreement on each feature with the customer. In this methodology work steps are divided with feature breakdown structures. In order to track the progress of the project progress charts are used instead of Gantt charts. Cross-functional and test-driven development teams starts working from the very beginning of the project to provide

methodology and how they can be implemented interactively. Agile is a much more adaptive method than

In this paper, we are going to analyze the most widely known method of project management; agile project management. Agile has gained an enormous amount of popularity in the world of software development over the last few years due to benefits like increased business value and faster ROI, improved visibility and lower development costs, greater ability to respond to requested changes and decreased risk in solution delivery. The Agile Method ensures that value is optimized throughout the development process. The use of iterative planning and feedback results in teams that can continuously align a delivered product that reflects the desired needs of a client. It easily adapts to changing requirements throughout the process by measuring and evaluating the status of a project. The measuring and evaluating allows accurate and early visibility into the progress of each project.

Agile methodologies promote a structured project management process that encourages self-organisations, accountability and teamwork. These are the best practices that allow customer needs and company goals to be developed through rapid delivery of high quality software and a clear business approach. The software development is based on iterative development that consists of various procedures (cPrime, 2016).

There has been a lot said in the last few years about Agile project management methodologies, and I have found that the general feeling is that Agile although not perfect tends to provide better results in software development projects than waterfall and other methodologies. People tend to be very opinionated about it, and in my experience there three dominant positions about Agile: you either love it, hate it or you don’t care, in other words, you do not believe in methodologies at all, you think they are all a waste of time and effort.

The purpose of this report is to define and discuss the use of agile methodologies. Agile is becoming a more popular term within the information technology industry and this report will help those unfamiliar with its techniques understand how agile works. The goal is also to inform the readers why agile can be preferred over traditional methods. While reading this report, it is recommended to keep in mind that agile is an alternative to using the traditional systems development lifecycle method.

Agile methodology is an alternative approach to traditional management, especially in software development. This method assists in responding to the unpredictability of developing software. It uses incremental, iterative work sequences that are generally known as sprints. This methodology is used to minimize risk by developing software in short time boxes. Figure (5) illustrating Agile methodology below.

3.. The Agile Methodologies which can be considered as many different project, in the software project.

Emerging evidence seems to indicate the debate over which project management methodology is optimal continues. Agile approaches which include Iterative and Adaptive models (i.e. Scrum) are at one end of the spectrum. Traditional approaches which includes Linear and Incremental models (i.e. Waterfall) at the other end. With a growing demand to deliver quality products in rapidly changing global market, project managers are required to be creative in their selected approach. Which methodology should be used? Moreover, organizations may mandate a certain approach over another more suitable approach. Is one approach more effective than the other?

Many people think that, Agile and Plan-Driven are the quiet opposite methodologies used in software development process.

Scrum, Kanban, XP are some of the methodologies used to develop the software form the Agile..

Project quality management ensures that the quality of the project is up to the quantified standard defined by the company.

These are some reason that traditional processes replace agile processes mainly in small and simple projects. This is happening because of traditional methods’ limitations and deficiencies, which includes a slow adaptation to business requirements changes, and a tendency to go over budget and as well as behind schedule. The traditional methods also lack in providing improvements in simplicity, productivity and reliability phenomena’s. Despite of these limitations, traditional methods are widely used by many software developers in projects. Traditional methods are capable to provide high assurance, predictability, and stability and their nature is structural, straightforward, and methodological. Agile processes mainly focus on incremental as well as iterative development. Also, frequent deliveries after each sprints and customer collaboration are key element of Agile. Agile process has many advantage such as short lifecycle, low bug-rate, high customer satisfaction, and fast adaptation to changing requirements.

Alternative approaches to management developed over the years are extremely important to modern software project management, although new approaches are needed to deal with some of the toughest challenges. According to experts, “the popular interest in management as a discipline and a field of study is fairly recent. But management, both as a practice and as a field of study, has a respectable history, in many different countries, going back almost two centuries.” (Drucker 2008, p.12). Modern approaches to management were developed in the USA after World War II which are now taught in colleges and universities. The four classic functions about management one may learn in school are: “planning, organizing, leading, and controlling” (Nelson & Economy 2005, p. 5). More functions need to be added to the list of skills for acquiring in the process of learning about project management aspects. Project management challenges can be viewed from a process perspective and many experts such as McFarland (1970) highlighted this view. Management is the “process by which managers create, direct, maintain and operate purposive, organizations though systematic, coordinated, cooperative human effort” (McFarland 1970, p. 5). “Because projects are transient, their delivery follows a development process, from germination of the idea, through initiation, design and delivery, to commissioning, handover to the client and closeout of the work.” (Turner 2014, p. 5)

1, Discuss Software Development Methodologies in general - what is a Methodology, why are methodologies used?