Traditional Project Management

Overview

The traditional approach to project management involves three steps.

• Gather Requirements
• Design a project plan and minimize dependencies
• Execute the plan and update as necessary

The key advantages to such an approach is to plan ahead of execution. The plan is designed to anticipate the project resources and bottlenecks. This allows the project management to form expectations about the resources and time necessary to complete the plan, as well as to execute on the plan optimally by planning resource allocation and minimizing bottlenecks.

Traditional Project Management Apps

Gantt Chart : The gantt chart is a way to chart a traditional waterfall

Criticisms of the Waterfall

The primary criticism of the traditional waterfall is that it often is too rigid. It is impossible to fully understand the requirements until the project is completed and accepted. In addition, the expected required resources are just that, an expectation. You dont know what you dont know until you are in the middle of trying to implement a plan. As soon as your understanding of a project or problem changes, you must adapt. But does that mean not to make a plan? If no plan survives contact with the enemy, why does the US military still make them?

A top level waterfall plan can still be of use in communicating your current understanding of a project and the reources required, as long as all participants understand the maxims above. The plan will change, dont stake any big bets on the current deadlines and dont invest too many resources developing a plan that wont last

For many projects, some overall plan is required in order to create a budget for the project, which is required in order to secure the necessary funding.