Factors affecting choice of methodology

Innovative Solutions specializes in system analysis, design and the development services. The clients of the firm can be a very small business or a large organization. Depending on the size and the type of the organization and the projects that are undertaken by the organization along with the line of business, financial resources and organizational culture, a particular process of project implementation is proposed to the organization. There are a number of approaches that can be followed while developing a system, which includes, sequential, iterative, model driven, prescriptive and so on. The report will focus on the system development methodologies that the employees of the Innovative solutions need to consider, for properly evaluating the system development methodology that should be proposed to the clients for managing their projects (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The factors that determine the appropriateness of a particular approach and the guidelines that can be followed by the staffs and employees of the consulting firm called Innovative Solutions is discussed in the following paragraphs.

There are a number of development approaches that are adopted in a number of projects. A project with a clear scope and objective might use sequential project approach while that of an information technology project might use an iterative approach. There a number of factors that determine the appropriateness of particular development approach that an organization can undertake. These factors are as follows-

1. The size of an organization is one of the key factors that determine the appropriateness of a particular development approach. The size of the organization gives an idea of the human labour and the resources the company can arrange for a particular project and the system development methodology largely depends on the same.
2. After evaluating the size of the organization, it becomes very essential to evaluate the team size. The number of human resources available for the project largely affects the choice of system development methodology. For example, an organization with lesser human resources might opt for a waterfall approach or sequential approach of project development since in this approach, one phase follows another and therefore, the work load of simultaneous operations of more than one project phases is not faced by the organization (Schwalbe, 2015).
3. The choice of a particular development approach further depends on the critical nature of the project. A mission critical project is expected to choose a methodology that will involve vigorous testing, such as in agile project methodology.
4. The choice of a particular development approach largely depends on the complexity and the time allocated for a project. A fast paced project will involve a methodology that will ensure timely release (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2014). On the other hand, a complex project will be using a project methodology that involves thorough supervision of the project that timely review of the project progress.

These are the most significant factors that mainly affect the decisions that are based on the appropriateness of a particular development approach of an organization.  

A system development methodology can be defined as a framework that can be used to structure, plan and control the process of development of an information system (Turner, 2016). The use of different system development methodologies has evolved over the years and each methodology has its own strength and weakness. Two of the most widely used system development methodologies, scrum and Rational Unified process is evaluated in the following section along with their benefits and drawbacks.

2.1. Scrum 

Scrum project management methodology is mainly used for managing the delivery of software projects. It provides a lightweight process of managing a project. In this project management process, the organization prioritizes their work by breaking the project into manageable chunks. Scrum works by collaborating and communicating with the people who are working on the project (Mahalakshmi & Sundararajan, 2013). In this methodology, a project is modified according to the feedbacks of the client thus ensuring customer satisfaction. The goal of scrum project management methodology is to provide customers, what they want. The characteristics of this project management approach are listed below-

1. The simplicity and the flexibility that is offered by the scrum methodology is one of the key characteristics of this project methodology (Kaleel & Harishankar, 2013).
2. This project methodology ensures a quality product is delivered to the clients as specified by the client, which is another integral characteristic of the project.
3. Visibility is another important characteristic of management of the project with the scrum project methodology. This is done by encouraging user and client involvement in the project.
4. Small incremental releases make it easier for the project team in early identification and the resolution of the issues.

Scrum methodology

There are a number of benefits or advantages of using a scrum project management approach which are as follows- (Thakur & Kaur, 2013)

1. Scrum ensures proper quality management of the project.
2. It increases the transparency in the process of project management.
3. The project risks are easily identified and eliminated and the project is divided into certain manageable units.
4. It is easier to control the cost associated with the project as project is executed in a controlled environment.

However, there are a number of drawbacks that are associated with the use of the scrum project methodology which are listed below (Sharma & Hasteer, 2016)-

1. A project that has no clear definition cannot be implemented using scrum
2. The success of the project largely depends on the dedication of all participants.

2.2. Rational Unified Process

It is a software development process that divides the entire project implementation in four distinct phases. Each phase involve business modelling, analysis, design, implementation and testing. The four phases of Rational Unified Process are Inception, Elaboration, Construction and Transition. The characteristics of this project methodology are as follows-

1. Rational Unified Process (RUP) gives a strong emphasis on the building systems by understanding how the system will be used.
2. It supports object oriented technique where each model of the project is considered as an object.
3. The RUP project processes in easily configurable.
4. It encourages quality control and risk management in a project.

The benefits of using RUP project methodology are as follows-

1. The use of RUP provides the ability to control the software in its development process thus providing a better control over the software.
2. RUP has a number of applications and can be used in managing the complex projects as well.

However, there are a number of drawbacks of using RFU, which are as follows (Despa, 2014)-

1. The project team members are needed to be expert in the field to use this methodology.
2. The development process is very complex and disorganized.
3.  Accurate documentation is an essential need of this project management methodology, which is a time consuming task.

The appropriateness of each methodology is determined by the type of project (Vijayasarathy & Butler, 2016). Scrum is mainly used in the projects that have clear requirements for example development of software projects like that of development of a website. The RUP is mainly used in projects where the requirements are complex like that of large software development projects such as implementation of enterprise resource planning systems (Dyck & Majchrzak, 2012).

The following points will act as a guideline that will be used by the employees of Innovative Solutions for proper decision making.

1. A first, it is necessary to evaluate the size of the organization and the type of the project that the organization is handling in order to recommend a particular methodology.
2. The project management experience of the company is needed to be judged before a particular project methodology proposed. This is because, for an organization that has lesser knowledge and experience of project management, the complex methodologies such as RUP or PMBOK cannot be proposed.
3. The workforce and the number of team members are needed to be evaluated as well in order to determine which project methodology will be suitable.  
4. The complexity of the project is needed to be judged. This is because for a complex project such as development of enterprise resource planning system, project methodologies such as scrum cannot be proposed.
5. The type of the project and its schedule is needed to be evaluated as well in order to understand which methodology will be appropriate to consider.

Conclusion 

The report discusses the different factors that can determine the appropriateness of a particular development approach that an organizations should adopt in order to manage their projects. The report reviews two most significant project development methodologies such as scrum and rational unified process in order to evaluate which type of projects can be implemented by following these methodologies. The report finally provides certain guidelines for the employees of Innovative Solutions that will assist them in selecting the methodology that will be appropriate to consider for an organization

References 

Despa, M. L. (2014). Comparative study on software development methodologies. Database Systems Journal, 5(3), 37-56.

Dyck, S., & Majchrzak, T. A. (2012, January). Identifying common characteristics in fundamental, integrated, and agile software development methodologies. In System Science (HICSS), 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 5299-5308). IEEE.

Kaleel, S. B., & Harishankar, S. (2013). Applying agile methodology in mobile software engineering: Android application development and its challenges. Computer Science Technical Reports.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Mahalakshmi, M., & Sundararajan, M. (2013). Traditional SDLC Vs Scrum Methodology–A Comparative Study. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, 3(6), 192-196.

Marcelino-Sádaba, S., Pérez-Ezcurdia, A., Lazcano, A. M. E., & Villanueva, P. (2014). Project risk management methodology for small firms. International journal of project management, 32(2), 327-340.

Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Sharma, S., & Hasteer, N. (2016, April). A comprehensive study on state of Scrum development. In Computing, Communication and Automation (ICCCA), 2016 International Conference on (pp. 867-872). IEEE.

Thakur, S., & Kaur, A. (2013). Role of agile methodology in software development. International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing, 2(10), 86-90.

Turner, R. (2016). Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.

Vijayasarathy, L. R., & Butler, C. W. (2016). Choice of software development methodologies: Do organizational, project, and team characteristics matter?. IEEE Software, 33(5), 86-94.