Project Management Methodology: Waterfall, PMBOK, and Lifecycle

This report provides a comprehensive overview of project management methodologies, focusing on a comparative analysis between the Waterfall and PMBOK approaches. It begins by defining project management methodology as a crucial tool for achieving commercial success in today's dynamic business environment, emphasizing its role in decision-making, time management, and project scope control. The report then contrasts the Waterfall methodology, characterized by its linear, sequential phases, with the PMBOK methodology, which provides a set of standards and guidelines applicable to various project management phases. A detailed explanation of the Waterfall project lifecycle is presented, including phases such as feasibility study, requirements gathering, design, coding, testing, and final delivery. The report highlights the importance of each phase and illustrates how these methodologies contribute to effective project development and implementation. References to academic sources support the analysis.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY
Assignment 1: Project Management Methodology
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1. Defining Project management methodology
In this new era of technology two factors those have become increasingly common place
are change and complexity. Each business and project is looking for commercial success which
is probably impossible without proper project management methodology (PMM). Kerzner and
Kerzner (2017), stated that project management methodology is referred to as a tool that,
provides the means by which plan can execute the initiatives with strategic success. In order to
survive in the ever evolving workplace projects are needed to be cost effective, competitive,
productive, consumer focused and cost effective as well. According to Joslin and Muller (2015),
the number of factors associated to the efforts, global scope of market can be managed and
organized properly with the help of project management methodology. Again Spundak (2014)
opined that Project management methodology is a tool rather sequential framework that helps the
businesses to meet the requirement and project objectives.
The roles project management methodology serves in project management
Project management methodology plays successful role for managing projects and the
main benefits associated to it are as follows:
Decision making: It helps to make effective decision in terms of project success. Due to
having proper clarity on the roles and expected behavior of different players in a project enables
proper decision taking. The main reason of delay project delivery is confusion over the person
who is accountable for a particular work (Mahadevan, Kettinger & Meservy, 2015). This
confusion can even be resolved with proper decision making.

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Time management: Through Project Management Methodology (PMM) different
resources (human, physical) can be reused which can save money and time as well.
Project scope control: The scopes of the project are controlled in an organized manner
through the application of project management methodology (Chofreh et al., 2015).
Better problem resolution power: Through Project Management Methodology (PMM),
risk register can be developed, for the identification of possible risks and even strategies to
resolve those.
2. Compare and contrast between Waterfall and PMBOK
Waterfall is referred to as a SDLC (software development life cycle) theme with a simple
approaches that values solid project planning over the agile approach in terms of iterative and
incremental project delivery. In this case, project is tends to be larger, complex and the work is
planned extensively up front and then executed. The requirements are defined as completed at
the very beginning of the project and also deliver the project as a single one. In this PMM before
success of one phase, the next cannot be started (Steinke, Al-Deen, & LaBrie, 2017). It seems
that, the outcome of one phase works as an input to the next phase. However, the main issues
associated to waterfall are that its scope to reflect and revision is very little rather, can be done
only after the completion of its previous activity. It can provide predictable result to the
developed n terms of budget, time and project scope.
On the other hand, PMBOK methodology is an applying universal standard to the
waterfall project management. PMM cannot be defined as a methodology but can be referred to
as a set of standards that refers to different phases of project management those are outlined as

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Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) (Verma, Bansal & Pandey, 2014).). The
phases of PMBOK include initiation, planning, execution, control and closure. This is not just as
much methodology or framework for standards, process, conventions, terminologies and
guidelines those are accepted as the project management standard. PMBOK contains various
processes or techniques of project management through which a project can move towards
success before final evaluation or execution. PMBOK practices are not completely unrelated to
waterfall because this guide covers different essential perspectives for being a successful project
manager in the waterfall environment.
3. Waterfall related to the Project Life Cycle
Figure 1: waterfall Project management Lifecycle
(Source: Steinke, Al-Deen & LaBrie, 2017, pp-52)

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This linear sequential design approach holds different phases and the phase are feasibility
study, requirements gathering and analysis, design and specification, coding and module testing,
integration and system testing, final delivery and maintenance. The above diagram shows the
phases of waterfall methodology (Mahadevan, Kettinger & Meservy, 2015). The detail of the life
cycle model is elaborated below:
Feasibility study: In this phase the project manager should make a feasibility study to
ensure that whether the project outcome is beneficial or not.
Requirement gathering and analysis: After feasibility study, necessary resources should
be identified and requirements should be gathered from those resources accordingly. The
functions and purpose of the project are specified in this phase.
Design and specification: The requirement specifications are studied in this phase before
preparing the system design (Joslin & Muller, 2015). The system design helps to specify
hardware and other requirements in terms of overall system architecture.
Coding and module testing: After designing the system model proper coding and
functional activities should be added to it. Each of the unit or module is developed ad tested
accordingly for its functionality which is called unit testing.
Integration and system testing: After unit testing each of the units are collaborated to
together for final integrated system integration. The designed software should go through
frequent testing so reduce human error and other operational issues.

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Final delivery and maintenance: This is the final phase where the designed system is
delivered to the consumer and post implementation maintenance plans are also developed in this
phase.
Thus, it can be said that with this project management lifecycle, an accurate system can
be developed and implemented.

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References
Chofreh, A. G., Goni, F., Shaharoun, A. M., & Ismail, S. (2015). A review on sustainability
transformation roadmaps using project management methodology. Advanced Science
Letters, 21(2), 133-136.
Joslin, R., & Müller, R. (2015). Relationships between a project management methodology and
project success in different project governance contexts. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(6), 1377-1392.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Mahadevan, L., Kettinger, W. J., & Meservy, T. O. (2015). Running on Hybrid: Control Changes
when Introducing an Agile Methodology in a Traditional" Waterfall" System
Development Environment. CAIS, 36, 5.
Spundak, M. (2014). Mixed agile/traditional project management methodology–reality or
illusion?. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, 939-948.
Steinke, G. H., Al-Deen, M. S., & LaBrie, R. C. (2017). Nnovating information system
development methodologies with design thinking. In proceedings of the 5th international
conference on applied innovations in it (pp. 51-55).
Umbreen, M., Abbas, J., & Shaheed, S. M. (2015). A Comparative Approach for SCRUM and
FDD in Agile. International Journal of Computer Science and Innovation, 2015(2), 79-
87.

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Verma, J., Bansal, S., & Pandey, H. (2014). Develop framework for selecting best software
development methodology. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering
Research, 5(4).