Vulnerability of project management life cycle models failures and risks

Vulnerability of Project Management Life Cycle Models: failures and risks

Carlos A. G. Fanha
BSc in Mechanical Engineering; MBA in Services;
MSc in Project Management – Oil & Gas student- University of Liverpool

A Project Management Life Cycle (PMCL) is as a sequence that encompasses five processes in order to accomplish the project’s goal. These processes are the scoping, planning, launching, monitoring and controlling and closing. According to Wysocki (2012, p.38) there are five different Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC) models, defined as Linear, Incremental,
Interactive, Adaptive and Extreme models. These five models are distributed in four quadrants forming a continuum ranging from certainty about solution – where both the goal and solution are clearly defined - to some uncertainty about the solution - where goal is clearly defined and the solution is not clearly defined - and finally to major uncertainty about the solution – where neither the goal nor solution are clearly defined. The four quadrants are the Traditional Project
Management (TPM), the Agile Project Management (APM), the Extreme Project Management
(xPM) and the Emertxe Project Management (MPx).
Analyzing the vulnerability of the presented models in relation to failures and risks, one could begin arguing about the close relation existing in between complexity and uncertainty domain of projects and their probability of failure and degree of associated risks. The complexity of a project can be a good indicator to the project manager (PM) in defining the best fit PMLC model applicable to the project. Complexity is correlated to the four PM quadrants models and as project complexity increases the PMLC travels from the TPM – less complex - through the APM, xPM and finally to MPx models – most complex. Considering that complexity and uncertainty are positively correlated to one another, as projects become more complex they become more uncertain (Barki, 2001, p.40). The