Traditional Project Management in Action 🚀
This article will teach you traditional project management, using an example based on “identifying the customer.”
The following are aspects of traditional project management:
- Key project management models
- Tailoring your project approach
- Project phases
- Different types of organizations
- The PMO
Here is an example of traditional project management in action.
For any project, it is important to identify “Who is the Customer?” Using the traditional waterfall approach, let’s walk through the process of identifying who the customer is.
You may recall the following phases in a waterfall approach:
- System and software requirements
- Analysis
- Design
- Coding or Build
- Testing
- Operations
This is an example of Company X, which offers the best-selling smartphone. The key features of this smartphone are:
- It is cost-effective,
- has a good quality camera,
- and has a great storage capacity.
With time, the sales of the product started declining. The primary customers of this product include the youth. Company X conducted market research to understand the reason for the reduction in sales. According to the study, consumers purchase dual-camera phones, while their current smartphones lack this feature. Thus, a new version of the smartphone with a dual camera was developed.
Traditional PM methodology
The company opted for the Traditional PM approach or the waterfall method to execute this project and performed the following steps:
- System requirements: The project team developed a detailed project plan that included the development of the new smartphone’s hardware and software components. They also laid down a timeline for production and the end product hitting the market. The project team also made a broad projection of the cost/price.
- Design: In this stage, the project team designed the new camera model based on the requirements and analysis performed in the previous phases. This stage also included prototyping.
- Engineering: The team developed the camera and integrated it with the phone.
- Testing: When the product was readied by engineering, the testing team performed a series of tests internally before launching the product in the market. For example, they tested the camera for functionality, security, performance, and so on.
- Operations: In the final stage, the new smartphone was launched in the market for users. Ongoing maintenance and support were provided to the users.
- Analysis: The team developed wireframe models, diagrams, and other documentation to help the team better understand and design the system requirements.
Analysis was made based on the following questions:
- Which screens will be displayed when the user clicks on a button?
- What functions/buttons should be on the phone’s home page?
- What navigation buttons and filters will the new camera have?
- What will be the backend and frontend processes of the camera?
In this scenario, the company identified its core customers and modified its product according to their demands. The team completed the project on time by opting for TPM. The company opted for the Traditional Project Management approach for the following reasons
- To provide a clear structure for planning, executing, and monitoring a project.
- To predict the project’s outcome and timeline more accurately.
- To ensure proper allocation of resources.
- Also, the Traditional Project Management approach requires documentation at each stage. This helped to provide a clear audit trail of the project’s progress.
