Executive's Guide to Project Management: Organizational Processes and Practices for Supporting Complex Projects

Agile Project Management

What about those cases where what is needed is clearly defined but how to produce it isn't at all that obvious? These types of projects occupy a space in the landscape somewhere between traditional and extreme projects. Many managers have observed that the vast majority of their projects are a closer fit to agile project management (APM) projects than TPM projects. Clearly TPM won't work when the solution is not known. For TPM to work you need a detailed plan; and if you don't know how you will get what is needed, how can you generate a detailed plan?

Two model types fall into the APM quadrant. The first is the Iterative PMLC Model. The second is the Adaptive PMLC Model.

Iterative PMLC Models

As soon as some of the details of a solution are not clearly defined or perhaps are even missing, you should favor some form of Iterative PMLC Model. The Iterative PMLC Model is shown in Figure 2.4.

Figure 2.4 Iterative PMLC Model

You might notice that this is quite similar to production prototyping. That is, a working solution is delivered from every iteration. The objective is to show the client an intermediate and perhaps incomplete solution and ask them for feedback on changes or additions they would like to see. Those changes are integrated into the prototype and another incomplete solution is produced. This process repeats itself until either the client is satisfied ...