In IT Project Management, Square Pegs Don’t Fit into Round Holes

How Do New Projects Get Born?

Congratulations! Thanks to your intake process, you officially have a shiny new project to manage. At this point, your focus is shifting to how you’re actually going to deliver it—on time and under budget, of course. While Waterfall and Agile are mainstays of IT project management, it’s possible that neither of those is the best choice for projects that are outside IT’s usual orbit. 

There are other methodologies available that might be a better fit for projects and teams in other parts of your organization. Let’s say, for example, the Marketing department’s proposal for a one-off customer event was approved and you’ll be helping them build out the project plan. In order to set the Marketing team up for success, they need a plan that’s easy to use, allows for collaboration, and provides them with a place to store associated project-related documents together, so neither Waterfall nor Agile would be the best choice.

Perhaps all they need (and want) is a simple way to track which parts of the project are “not started,” “in progress,” or “complete” as they move along, and a “card wall” might be the perfect fit. With the right project management software at your disposal, you’ll be able to match your plans to the projects you’re tracking and the teams that will be doing the work—all from one platform. This way, if IT project management is your primary focus, you’ll be able to build out plans using Waterfall or Agile as you normally would. However, as you venture outside of IT and into other departments across the organization, you’ll have the flexibility you need to be able to offer project plans that work for everyone, which will help build confidence in your project management office (PMO) and increase the success rate of all projects your organization chooses to take on.