Have you considered how a project management methodology can help you and your team achieve long-term success?
If you’re thinking, “I don’t work in industries like technology or construction, so this doesn’t apply to us,” think back to the last project you worked on. Did the team feel motivated? Productive from start to finish? Or did every day feel like this? ⬇️
Channel 4 via GIPHY We understand. As a project manager , it’s hard to deliver projects with often unclear direction from clients and stakeholders, let alone manage the process in between. Project management methods establish a system of principles, standard processes, and control to manage multifaceted projects that come in all shapes and requirements—across all industries.
By the end of this article, you’ll learn:
- How to optimize the five phases of a project lifecycle
- The top 18 project management methodologies used across wide geographies
- Recommended features in ClickUp for specific project management methodologies
We invite you to ditch the messy, complicated, and inflexible processes for proven methodologies to leverage
project management tools
and various techniques for success. ⚙️⚖️🚀
The 5 Phases of a Project Lifecycle
Whether you’re a new or seasoned project manager, let’s refresh our minds on the five fundamental project lifecycle phases you need to know to run successful projects. This will help you in your decision to choose the right project management methodology.
👾 Phase 1: Initiation
A project always begins with a conversation. When you come out of the first meeting with a client or stakeholder , you should fully understand the project purpose, SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, communication expectations, and budget.
👾 Phase 2: Planning
The planning phase goes more in-depth than determining the project scope and schedule (which is only the beginning). If you’re using a timeline or Gantt chart tool, it’s critical also to disclose these key project details in a project charter :
- Estimates and cost for people and software resources
- Potential risks, assumptions, and blockers
- Dependencies
- Project teams (roles and workflows)
- Change process requirements
- Success criteria
- Did we mention dependencies?
👾 Phase 3: Execution
Dependencies are an absolute necessity for controlled project execution . If you’re a coffee person and you skip your morning cup and head straight to work, chances are, you make your day a little more difficult than it should be.
As you’re on the path to assigning individual tasks, have an open discussion with the project team about what can or can’t be started until a specific task is completed. You’ll save time and money with transparency and set everyone up for success from start to finish.
👾 Phase 4: Monitoring
Data is your north star metric to manage people, resources, budgets , and risks during the execution phase. Make sure you’re using a powerful productivity tool like ClickUp to know what project contributors are working on and what they need to do next.
Even more, track project goals and communicate with stakeholders and clients within ClickUp.
👾 Phase 5: Closing
After you turn in the final deliverables and wrap up loose ends, it’s advantageous to assess the performance of team members and resources. This reflection period will help improve the next project.
Have all deliverables been completed, validated, and archived?
Were issues and risks effectively managed?
Which processes were easy/challenging, and what would they change?
via GIPHY Relate: Project Management Examples !
Top 18 Project Management Methodologies
Welcome to your pocket encyclopedia of the top 18 project management methodologies! 📘
Adaptive Project Framework (APF)
A nod to agile project management methodology, the adaptive project framework is an iterative approach to satisfy a project’s goals and outcomes. Meaning, a project’s plan is broken into short iterations (or cycles) of tasks. This helps structure task dependencies and establishes clear deadlines.
The five steps in the adaptive project framework are:
- [Project Scope ](https://clickup.com/blog/project-scope/)2. Analysis
- Design
- Development
- Testing
- Delivery
A phase can’t begin until the previous phase is complete
🟢 Waterfall Pros
- Easy and familiar to understand for new and seasoned teams
- No overlap between project phases
- Clear deadlines are determined and adhered to at the start of the project
Check out our Waterfall Management Template !
🟡 Waterfall Cons
- Top-down communication model
- Not suitable for software development or complex projects
- Not best for ongoing projects
100+ Powerful Tools in ClickUp For Any Project Type
Now that you know your best project methodologies options, where can you keep your people, processes, and projects organized? 🤔
One of the best ways to add value to your work and optimize your time is to use a software tool. Our recommendation? ClickUp! ✨
Productivity-boosting features in ClickUp for any project type
ClickUp is the ultimate productivity platform allowing teams to manage projects, collaborate smarter, and bring all work under one tool. Here are a few ClickUp features among the hundreds available that can be customized to any team size for consistent collaboration:
📊 Dashboards ClickUp Dashboards are a time-saving resource to share high-level views with project stakeholders or project progress with anyone in their Workspace! Track sprints, task progress, portfolio management, and more with customizable widgets.
A must-have tool for these project management methodologies:
- Agile
- Integrated Project Management (IPM)
- Package Enabled Reengineering (PER)
- Rational Unified Process
- Adaptive project framework (APF)
- Scrumban
Create a visual representation of work for your entire team with ClickUp Dashboards
🤖 Automations
Create your custom Automations or choose from ClickUp templates
With ClickUp Automations , you’re able to set up combinations of Triggers and Actions to help automate repetitive actions—saving time and allowing you to focus on things that matter. Does your team use workflow software with external applications like GitHub? Automate your workflow within ClickUp using the GitHub integration !
A must-have tool for these project management methodologies:
- Waterfall
- Agile
- Integrated Project Management (IPM)
- Package Enabled Reengineering (PER)
🗒 List view
ClickUp’s powerful and flexible List view can sort, filter, or group columns in any way. Columns can be customized to show important information—task assignees, start and due dates, project briefs , website links, task comments—it’s up to you!
A must-have tool for these project management methodologies:
- SCRUM
- PRINCE2
- GTD
- New Product Introduction (NPI)
Show additional columns and create Custom Fields from any List view
🔷 Subtasks
Expand the entire tree of nested subtasks within List, Gantt, and Mind Map views in ClickUp Subtasks in ClickUp add a layer to your work structure, allowing you to define more detailed goals inside of your tasks. This is a perfect solution for: action items that don’t warrant a new task, objectives that need to be completed to finish an overall task, and task dependencies.
A must-have tool for these project management methodologies:
- Critical Path Method
- Agifall/Hybrid
- Outcome Mapping
🏃♀️ Sprint Sprints in ClickUp are packed with additional ClickUp features to help teams better understand and manage their product roadmaps. Available on every ClickUp plan, Sprints use tasks as items of work so teams don’t have to rely on other software to get their work done.
A must-have tool for these project management methodologies:
- eXtreme Programming (XP)
- Agile
- Agifall/Hybrid
- Adaptive project framework (APF)
Create a Sprint Folder in ClickUp to organize individual Sprints
🟫 Board view
Edit the Show settings to customize a Board view
Choose whether you want to zoom in on a single List, an entire Folder, or even all Spaces across your Workspace in Board view . For teams that prefer Kanban project management, Board’s view powerful drag-and-drop interface is perfect for visualizing tasks in progress.
A must-have tool for these project management methodologies:
- Lean
- Agile
- GTD
- Scrumban
ClickUp: A Powerful and Friendly Tool
Your ClickUp Workspace can be fully customized to optimize any project management methodology so you can do your best work and take it anywhere you go. Change the way you build and manage projects with ClickUp today!