Sampling of PM Practices in use for IT Projects

For your reference I am providing some information about the formal Project Management practices and methodologies being utilized today in IT. I believe there is much to be learned about this industries approach to PM and there is definitely a level of applicability to the projects we support in the semiconductor world. Your takeaway from the information below will be a better understanding of the meanings behind the most common Project Management buzzwords you will find in the literature today.

PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge)
This is the standard implementation of structural project management in the US as developed by the Project Management Institute. There is a certification process for a PMP, PgMP and CAPM levels of project managers. Please see http://pmi.org for more information about this methodology for managing projects.

Prince2 (Projects in Controlled Environment)
Prince2 is the 2nd generation of a structured methodology for managing a project that was developed in the UK. Essentially it mandates that any project must have a controlled start, a controlled middle and a controlled end. There is training and exams much like those of the program management institute. More about prince2 may be found at http://www.prince2.org.uk. Wikipedia also has some good information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2. For literature on this methodology please see http://www.apmg-businessbooks.com/bookshop/bookshop.aspx?catID=3.

Agile
This was primarily developed for software development teams and the premise is rapid spins and delivery of the software throughout the development process. It focuses on multiple deliveries of smaller, fully tested subsets of the final product. This produces end customer sub-set deliverables early while the team continues iterating and expanding functionality until the final product is realized. One key concept of an Agile approach is that the project details are planned out incrementally as the project progresses, allowing a system that is much more capable of adapting to scope change. When in an environment of high innovation this approach may produce benefits over classical Prince2 or PMBOK structured approaches. For more information please see wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development.

Scrum
Scrum is a methodology that is typically associated with Agile software development although there is no hard requirement that I can see. It's really more of a PM methodology that employs a scrum master in place of a project manager. The premise of this approach is a series of short 2-4 week sprints to complete a predefined set of tasks. The teams focus purely on the sprint items during the sprint period and have daily meetings that cover what was done yesterday, what you will do today and what obstacles are in your way. There is also an emphasis on risk assessment and mitigation throughout the project cycle. A nice quick guide on this process can be found at http://www.softhouse.se/Uploades/Scrum_eng_webb.pdf.