IT Project Management Approaches Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

IT Project Management Approaches - Coursework Example It narrows down from the above two and looks at some of the specific applications in the information Technology field by looking at the Software development life cycle approach that is part of the traditional approach. It goes further in the agile approach to look at specific applications of the approach to the field of information technology. The paper also compares the two approaches by looking at their strengths and weaknesses and the type of projects to which they can be used/ applied and why they will or will not work. 1. The traditional/phased approach to project management The traditional approach to project management involves very well-organized and deliberate planning and control methods. In this approach there are distinct project life cycle stages or phases which are easily recognizable as one leads directly to another. Tasks are completed in in an orderly sequence, one after the other and this necessitates that a significant part of the entire project is planned before t he process begins (Hass, 2007,pp1-8). This model assumes that all events affecting the entire project are predictable and that the tools and the tasks undertaken by each individual are well understood. With this approach it assumes that once a phase is complete it will not be revisited, which is not the case for many projects especially IT projects. This model is forms the basis for the phased methodology used in many projects. The approach has taken many dimensions especially in the field of information technology with various sub models coming up from this traditional/phased model (Hass, 2007,pp1-8). The advantage of this approach is that it sets out the phases for development and stresses the importance of requirements for each stage. On the other hand the limitation is that projects rarely follow the sequential flow and many stakeholders find it difficult to define all the requirements for a project at the beginning(Hass, 2007,pp1-8). The approach has the following distinct stag es: initiation, planning and design, execution and construction, monitoring and controlling systems and finally the completion stage. It is important to note that not all projects will go through all the stages mentioned above some may be terminated before they get to the completion stage. 1.1. The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) In information technology projects, this phased approach can be compared to the software development life cycle approach (SDLC). This approach is composed of the following distinct stages that must be followed to come up with working software: planning, requirements definition, design, development, integration and testing and finally installation and acceptance (Radack, 2009, pp1-7). The planning stage aims at establishing a bird’s eye view of the proposed software product and uses this to form the basic project organization, assess feasibility and risks associated with the project and define suitable management and technical approaches. The m ost critical part concerning this stage is the listing of goals of the project and this is done before anything else (Radack, 2009, pp1-7). The requirement definition stage begins immediately the goals in the planning stage are identified. Each of these goals is then refined into a set of requirements which define the major functions of the proposed application and also define the initial data entities.