Lesson 4: Project Management Methodologies

In this lesson, we'll explain what a methodology is, and highlight two popular entities in the project management methodological world.

Welcome!

Regardless of where your project management path takes you, or within which field you apply your trade, you will find an interesting constant: there are an array of methodologies which will help you develop, implement, monitor, and achieve your project.

A what?

A methodology. A methodology is a model that the project management team uses to design, plan, implement, and achieve their project.

And why are there so many of them floating around? Well, that's because different projects benefit from different methodologies.

For example, if your project is to plan a wedding, you don't want to use the methodology relied upon by NASA to build a space station. Of if your project is to develop a course to teach project management 101, you don't want to bother using the wildly complicated methodology that the US Navy uses to build submarines.

So, different methodologies emerge which cater to different types of projects. Some of them are relatively simple, while others are amazingly complex.

While having this kind of choice is nice, it can also pose something of an obstacle to newer Project Managers, who might not know which methodology to choose.

Thankfully, there are lots of models you can read about and analyze, including the Lewis Method which we will cover shortly, and a host of different methodologies via the Links that I have recommended for this course (just click the Resources link at the top of this page to see some recommended websites).

In this lesson, we'll overview the very popular Lewis Method (developed by James P. Lewis), and we'll also look at the PMBOK (developed by the Project Management Institute) as two good places to start building your understanding of project management methodologies.

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