We’re not fans of clunky project management tools. Many of these products treat people as a resource, a byproduct, or a secondary consideration that gets lost in a web of hierarchies, dependencies, and endless subtasks. That’s a grave mistake—you don’t manage projects; you only ever manage people.
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While I shouldn’t be surprised, I didn’t realize there were this many distinct project management methods with names and all this jargon. Now that I know they exist, I realize I should probably read up on them, but I’m skeptical that it is ever a good idea to actually follow a given one to the letter. I think for any given project you’d want to borrow some aspects of some methods and other aspects of other methods. In the end, every project is different and every team is different. These approaches all provide good base points for some situations, and having an idea of how to proceed definitely seems useful, but getting too attached to one specific one seems like it would likely prevent the project manager from tailoring their approach to a particular project. I think in general I tend to view projects mostly from a Waterfall perspective, though with an understanding that nothing will actually fall into place exactly as planned into the original plan. I think that just comes from the fact I tend to think of projects in a gantt chart format, which seems to lend itself to the Waterfall approach.
So, my dad is a project manager. And oh boy, does he love to talk about different methods and organizational plans. Honestly, he gets so much joy from this kind of stuff. And I know what management style he likes the best, it's the Lean system. He's a blackbelt in it. I'm not even kidding, that's an actual title in the Lean system. Dad keeps asking me to look into these programs and sign up to take some of them and I've been resistant, mainly because I know that my father and I are very different in terms of management styles and what exactly we prioritize. Looking through this list, I'm finding myself drawn to the Agile format. Being able to clearly identify who is responsible for what and breaking down milestones into minute tasks helps me understand the needs of the project. I'm considering doing this for Cabaret, although I'm sure I'll have a hard time convincing the office to play along.
Reading through all seven of these project management tools is very overwhelming. I don’t actually understand most of the article, but from what I gathered, it seems that a lot of companies have spent time and resources into making mangers lives easier. I appreciate anyone who can acknowledge that managers always need help and are always looking for a more efficient way to organize, schedule, and plan. I’m always in awe of managers and their ability to keep everything straight. Obviously, each manager is going to prefer a different program and I think that the only way to truly tell which the best method is, is to try them out. It would be really useful if someone created a comparison chart on each method to help managers identity which method will work best for the scenario. That way, managers could streamline exactly what they needed and spend even more time on the larger issues. Hopefully I’ll learn what works best in the future and be able to work as efficiently as possible.
I was aware there were different approaches to management, but I did not know how defined and studied these approaches were. I love how this article starts with “you don’t manage a project, you manage people.” but later when describing the different methods talks about the project product as one of the factors to keep in mind when choosing your management approach. Usually our final product has different stages which may not be as structured as others. When trying to manage the creative team we might need something more flexible yet structured with milestones, to keep us on track, but when supervising load-in it might be a breakdown of what needs to be done. A TD, or Job Lead might prefer methods like Waterfall. A Production manager might need to make their own mixed pot of styles to tailor for their staff needs. Simply because we manage so many different departments that are not in the same line of work, even when the final product is the same: Opening a show.
I would love to be apart of an organization that is willing to adapt on a project by project basis to "test out" all of these methods to actually see how they work in action. I think for theatre specifically, a lot of the more change as you go programs, like Agile, are more suited to out type of work, but I definitely see the applications for the others as well. I also think these are great standardization benchmarks if a company has multiple managers working on similar projects and wants them all to handle all of those projects in the same fashion. I also think that this would save a lot of time when training new members of a project management team, and gauging the success of a project management department. I think it would be really interesting to be able to try a few of these methods myself and see which of them actually works for me.
I think this article is great at looking at different methods and acknowledging there are many ways to project manage. I often think these types of articles gives tips, and you feel obligated to try them, this author shows ways a project manager can work, and what kind of person it will work well for. I think that the different types also allow you to be flexible in different fields that project managers exist in. Project Management can be a really general term as so many industries has someone who asks as a project manager but does not always have the title. These types and skills could be used in many job settings, although I do think that the more organized and efficient someone is can be is normally helpful in any job. I think my classmates do a good job evaluating the article and all the different takes it has on project management.
While reading this article, I initially thought I would find one of seven methodologies that I would confide it. I later realized that I don't fall under any umbrella of the way in which I should think when dealing with project management. I believe in the fact that everyone has their own methodologies and their own ways in dealing with problems because everyone thinks and processes differently. Although I was unaware of the may different ways in which one can conquer project management, there is going to be just one that works. I personally relate the most to the waterfall method and PRINCE2. Both of these methods express the importance of taking each step one at a time. Each step in an over plan to accomplish something is important and needs to be done, which is how I normally work. I also slightly agreed with the PMI technique which is also a waterfall method, “Project Management Body of Knowledge, which breaks down project management into five phases: conception and initiation, planning, execution, performance and monitoring, and closing”. This connects to the overall theme of the waterfall method which personally makes the most sense. There have been situations where I could skip some steps and achieve the same goal, but most of the time I have to take things step by step.
So this was an honestly very interesting article on project management that had for me a lover of puns and jokes a great line in “Project Management Methodology Formerly Known as Prince.” But that aside while reading this article I was in the back of my head trying to determine what type of project management types we use in crazy scheme. Of the methodologies discussed in the article the two that I think most apply to crazy scheme are that of Scrum and Waterfall. I definitely see a lot of the scrum methodology in the office best seen I feel in the daily meetings we hold try to make sure that we are ready to adapt to new information . But when we shift into the shop I see a lot of the waterfall methodology and that to me makes a lot of sense due to the fact we in the shop fabricating share a lot of our process with the construction world where the waterfall methodology is heavily used. In short I am interested in learning more about these methodologies.
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