Project Management is always evolving and people are always finding better ways to manage projects as time passes and business practises change. There is no single method that is the "best" as different approaches will work in different situations. Project Management also requires the Project Manager to assess the situation and environment, adapting accordingly where possible.

For this article, we will briefly explore four different types of Project Life Cycles: Predictive, Iterative, Incremental and Agile.

Predictive Life Cycle

This is the traditional approach that many organisations are familiar with. This is where there is a lot of time and effort put into analysis and design of the deliverable before any development is done. A major disadvantage of the Predictive Life Cycle is that users are usually involved only for testing only when all the development work is completed.

Iterative Life Cycle

For the Iterative Life Cycle, users are involved even when the development work is still in progress. This allows work that is heading the wrong way to be steered back on course, thus saving time and effort that would have been wasted if the users could only the finished product. Expect plenty of prototypes and PoCs (Proofs of Concept) when using this approach.

Incremental Life Cycle

Quite similar to the Iterative Life Cycle except that multiple feature-complete deliverables are planned for, with each subsequent deliverable building on top of the previous deliverable like building blocks such that the final deliverable is the completed product with all the planned features. Perhaps one way to visualise this approach is treating the deliverable like a beta product where users are actually able to use the product, and more and more features are added in over time.

Agile Life Cycle

This is a mashup of the Iterative and Incremental Life Cycle where there are many deliverables, but each deliverable can have both incomplete and complete features so that the development team can quickly get feedback from users on all aspects before the final deliverable.

Conclusion

Just to reiterate, there is no one best way to do a project. Even within the same organisation, a life cycle approach that worked well for one project may fail for another. Probably one of the most important attributes for a project manager (or any team member for that matter) is adaptation. Learn how to make choices that will increase your chances of success.