Project life cycle

The choice of development approach has some impact on the project management methodology. Some methods, such as P3.express, are designed to be compatible with both approaches, whereas some, such as DSDM^®, are designed to support only the adaptive approach. So, when selecting your methodology, you should be mindful of the development approach.

One important aspect is that the project management life cycle should be compatible with the development approach; for example,

• a cyclic management life cycle can be used for the cyclic development of adaptive projects as well as the more-or-less linear development of the predictive methods, whereas
• a linear management life cycle can only be used for a linear development approach, such as those in predictive projects.

Matching the life cycle with the development approach is a complicated topic, and there’s no reason to worry about it as long as you pick a methodology that matches your development approach.