Project Management is a discipline used in all businesses to accomplish work that has a beginning and an end. There are work task that are done on a routine basis that fall under the category of operations. Conversely projects are those efforts that have a clear end date; for instance building a house, bridge or car.

There are numerous Project Management methodologies; camps, schools of thought on what is the best and most effective way to run a project depending on its size, complexity and host of other factors. Some of the more well-known methodologies are: Waterfall, Lean Six Sigma, and Agile. While there are numerous others – these 3 are the dominant ones especially in the field of Information Technology.

In the field of Information Technology where change is constant, the need for project management and delivery of solutions, versions upgrades, bug fixes etc., proceed at a break neck speed. Due to Moore’s Law that posits that computing power doubles every two years; the impact on the Information Technology industry is dramatic.

Since nearly every industry is dependent or at least reliant on Information Technology, it becomes a never-ending arms race to stay up to date with technology to keep pace with the competition in that particular industry. Hence there is a never-ending need for projects in IT that have to be completed faster and faster to both keep pace with the competition or maintain a competitive advantage.

The traditional method of Waterfall Project Management had its origins in the field of Engineering. This methods called for a detailed planning phase followed by an even more detailed design phase. After the
design was complete usually a prototype or model of some sort was developed based on the design; followed by the actual development or building of the actual project.

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Additionally a great many IT Project are tactical in nature and are considered through a ways due to the ever-increasing speed at which the technology is evolving. In words if takes a 9 months to a year of planning before the actual work is done on the project; the technology that was envisioned could be on the verge of becoming obsolete by the time the project is complete.

Enter the Agile Project Management Methodology: Scrum. This Scrum Project Management Method was developed for primarily for software projects. The idea behind Scrum is to not go overboard with up front planning and design, but instead to gather requirements and come up with quick, iterative outputs. This approach allows for software companies to get products to market much quicker, capture user/customer feedback and then quickly come up with a new release.

This method is being adopted in ever greater numbers by IT Departments as a way to show early on if a project is worth while to continue, and providing some quick wins and benefits to the business while the project is underway.

Like most topics of interest; the literature on Agile and Scrum have exploded with books, articles, web sites etc. However if you want to get a real down and dirty to the point education on the topic without having to wade through 500 pages of most filler material I would recommend you get a copy of:
“The Elements of Scrum” written by Chris Sims and Hilary Louise Johnson; published by Dymaxicon. It is 184 pages and written in a very humorous way that is a very informative and entertaining read. You will have what you need to begin using the Scrum methodology immediately after reading this book.

Submitted by Christopher A. Clarke on 10/17/14. 

Christopher A. Clarke is managing editor of Black2020.Com and can be reached through the sites contact page.