Project management for the sake of project management. Do you do that?

Question

I think some people are often too much into project management. Recently I worked on two blog posts about project management methodologies and their application. There are dozens of approaches. Many of them impose rules that are unreasonably complicated for most real-live projects in IT. I also joined a few PM groups on Facebook, and there is a lot of buzz about Scrum, PMBOK, and even Six-Sigma among people who run early-stage IT-startups or work for some small companies.

How far do you go with project management? Do you follow all trendy things? Do you do pure Scrum and prey Scrum gods? Do you study PMBOK? Do you know the difference between Crystal Clear, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Orange methods?

Or perhaps you simply utilize a bit of waterfall planning and the main Agile principles to construct your own approach to managing your product development?

Please also mention projects of what size do you normally deal with. Thx!

Richard Shepherd · Accepted Answer

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!  haha. A scrum is something sweaty people do in rugby.

We are managing a 6 month project with a sensible budget but we just meet weekly to review progress and set direction / goals for the coming week. We keep in mind the ultimate goal and assess our progress in terms of reaching that.

We try not  to put too much onto our plates for one week and keep it simple.  I guess in more complex environments with many stakeholders and lots of interacting disciplines some serious project management is a real skill and asset.

I was involved once in the delivery of a large IT infrastructure project for a national organisation with hundreds of thousands of users.  We had this wonderful project management chappy running the whole thing employing all the latest techniques partnered with years of experience.

It was a disaster and was replaced with a commercial offering a few years later.  Total flop.  No amount of project managment excellence can stop someone building something that ultimately users don't want.

So no, I would suggest project management for the sake of project management does not seem helpful.

Alexa Vovchenko · Answer

Would love to hear any responses as well :) From my experience talking to PM's, they have either passed PMP, work for a solid company and follow the rules, or work in a more casual way and act in terms of what makes more sense, even if it's not 'canonical'

Project management for the sake of project management. Do you do that?

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