Project management: waterfall and agile project management approach
1. Imagine that you are a consultant just recently hired as a project manager for a software development project for a small, privately owned landscaping/nursery business. They currently use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of their inventory of plant stock. The owner of the business, who is the project’s sponsor, is very accessible and is eager to get started. Your consulting firm will provide all the staffing for developing and testing this software. The solution infrastructure will use several local windows PCs in conjunction with cloud-based servers and databases.
Would you follow a traditional “waterfall” project management approach, or would you follow an “agile” model? Why? State your reasons. Be sure to include any key assumptions about the business/project that influence your direction.
2. Imagine that you are a home builder with 20+ year track record of very successful and profitable construction projects. You have won multiple “Builder of the Year” awards for excellence in residential home construction. Your newest customer, a professional Project Manager for a software development consulting firm, has just signed a $550,000 sales contract with you to build a new two-story, 4-bedroom, 2.5-bath home in a prestigious new suburban subdivision that you are developing. However, this customer insists that you follow the Agile Project Management model for the construction of their new home. How would you respond to your customer’s demand?
