1 Development of PMP and ACP
Before 1969, there were not many rules and methodologies for project management in the world. Until 1969, the United States established the PMI organization, launched a set of PMBOK rules and PMP certification, and project management around the world had rules and methodologies.
Until now, most industries still use this set of standard project management methods – traditional project management.
Before 2001, 17 software industry developers gathered at Snowbird ski resort in Utah. They skied during the day, drank, and chatted at night. They found they agreed that traditional project management was not suitable for the software industry. Then they formulated and signed one of the most important documents in the industry: The agile Manifesto.
So the concept of agile is very novel. From 2006 to 2007, agile was operable in China, and Tencent was one of the earliest Chinese enterprises to use agile. At the same time, a lot of problems to thought about for some projects, such as “Is there any network flow?”, “Are any other people willing to join us?” and so on.. Therefore, the requirements are uncertain, and the traditional project management method is not feasible anymore, so agile was born.
2 PMP vs ACP
PMP is a traditional management methodology. Traditional project management usually adopts waterfall and partial iterative development mode, which requires that during project construction, the requirements are clear enough and the documents are standardized enough. The more and later the requirements change in the iterative process, the greater the impact on the project and the delivery quality of the project.
As a new project management model, agile project management simplifies the tedious process and documents of traditional project management. Represented by SCRUM, we welcome the change of requirements. When the customer’s requirements are not clear, we aim to develop available software in a short period to help customers clarify their own requirements. The requirement changes during the iteration process. Will be able to the product backlog and developed in future iterations, enriching the product functions of the project.
PMP vs ACP is a kind of traditional model vs a new model.
Similarities of PMP and ACP
Agile project management claims to get rid of the cumbersome process and system documents, but some key project documents are still needed, such as project charter and work agreement, etc. Therefore, the management of the agile system can be thought of as the tailoring of a set of entire project management process systems, but the cutting scale is relatively large, which means it would also put forward higher requirements for the adaptability and autonomy of the agile projects team members.
In each iteration cycle, specific agile methods have daily standup meetings, burn-out charts, Kanban monitoring, release planning, etc., which do not conflict with the definition of start-up, planning, implementation, monitoring, and closure of five process groups in PMP, In fact, these measures of agile project management can be visible as a miniature version of the implementation of the five process groups of PMP project life cycle. The difference is that the iteration cycle of agile project management is very short, and many standardized and formal project management process systems are trim during the process of implementation.
Differences between PMP vs ACP
1. Different management methods are suitable for different types of projects, Scrum is more suitable for unknown, unknowable, or constantly changing projects;
2. Traditional management mode is like a planned economy system, Scrum is like a market economy system;
3. ACP greatly shortens the feedback loop between users and developers, expected goals and implementation status, investment and return on investment;
4. Small teams turn into “managers” of their own. Teams accept challenges themselves, find ways to deal with challenges, give full play to creativity, and avoid work obstacles.
3 Knowledge and understanding of both modes
PMP: traditional mode
The framework of PMP is based on knowledge areas. Its knowledge framework can cover all fields. Which means its framework is comprehensive and universal, rather than complete software development management. Therefore, we often find the application of the PMP framework in engineering fields. Such as construction engineering, hardware, software development, etc.
The traditional project management model is cloven into five groups of processes and ten areas.
The five process groups are Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring, and Closure.
The ten knowledge areas are Integration management, Scope management, Schedule management, Cost management, Quality management, Resource management, Communication management, Risk management, Procurement management, and Stakeholder management.
Each process group and knowledge areas have its own concepts, inputs/outputs, tools, and techniques. Which can be covert by project teams for management application.
In PMP, the role of a project manager is the controller and leader of five process groups and is also responsible for the results.
ACP: Agile mode
When it comes to roles in agile project management, most agile methods (especially scrum) do not include project managers. The roles and responsibilities of a traditional project manager are shared by the scrum team. Namely the development team, SM (ScrumMaster), and product owner.
Scrum’s goal is to make the development process more transparent, such through timely review and continuous development.
The core of Scrum is a sprint. Each sprint is an iteration, or a repetition cycle of similar work, to increase the output of a product. The length of each sprint cycle of the same product is still.
According to different products, we can customize different forms of backlog. But the core objectives are the same. Which are to clarify the objectives, check the timeliness of task completion, and review the problems existing in the process.
Scrum’s agility lies in that every sprint is continuous. Within the timebox of each sprint, there will be 15% time to make a sprint plan, and there is no time interval between adjacent sprints. In other words, the development is continuous, and the next sprint will start immediately after the end of the previous sprint.
In this article, we introduced the histories of PMP and ACP, and also discussed the similarities and differences between PMP and ACP.
