Synopsis of management frameworks

I studied a number of fascinating management frameworks, as model for the IT Project Complexity Management IT-PCM framework. 

A typical management process structure consists of the following main phases, or processes:

1. Planning.
2. Identification.
3. Analysis.
4. Developing response plans (strategies, actions).
5. Implementation, monitoring, control, and lessons learned.

Some widely recognized and accepted frameworks in project management and IT/software engineering are presented below.

Risk management

Risk management consists of the following processes (PMI, 2017):

1. Plan Risk Management - defining how to conduct risk management activities.
2. Identify Risks - identifying individual project risks as well as sources.
3. Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis - prioritizing individual project risks by assessing probability and impact.
4. Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis - numerical analysis of the effects.
5. Plan Risk Responses - developing options, selecting strategies and actions.
6. Implement Risk Responses - implementing agreed-upon risk response plans. In the 4th Ed. of PMBoK, this process was included as an activity in the Monitor and Control process, but was later separated as a distinct process in PMBoK 6th Ed. 
7. Monitor Risks - monitoring the implementation. This process was known as Monitor and Control in the previous PMBoK 4th Ed., when it also included the “Implement Risk Responses” process.

Vulnerability management

Project vulnerability is the project's susceptibility to being subject to negative events, the analysis of their impact, and the project's capability to cope with negative events (Marle & Vidal, 2016). Based on Systems Thinking, project systemic vulnerability management takes a holistic vision, and proposes the following process:

1. Project vulnerability identification.
2. Vulnerability analysis.
3. Vulnerability response planning.
4. Vulnerability controlling – which includes implementation, monitoring, control, and lessons learned.

Coping with negative events is done, in this model, through:

• resistance – the static aspect, referring to the capacity to withstand instantaneous damage, and
• resilience – the dynamic aspect, referring to the capacity to recover in time.

Redundancy is a specific method to increase resistance and resilience (Taleb, Goldstein, & Spitznagel, 2009).

Antifragility is the capacity of systems to not only resist or recover from adverse events, but also to improve because of them (Taleb, 2012).

Complexity management in systems engineering

A proposed model for managing complexity in systems engineering consists of (Maurer, 2017):

1. Define the system.
2. Identify the type of complexity.
3. Determine the strategy.
4. Determine the method.
5. Model the system.
6. Implement the method.

Software engineering: Systems development life cycle (SDLC), Waterfall, OOAD, Agile

Software engineering proposes models such as the Systems development life cycle (SDLC); Waterfall software development methodology / Structured systems analysis and design method SSAD, or OOAD (Satzinger, Jackson, & Burd, 2007).

The six core processes required in the development of a software application - SDLC are:

1. Identify the problem or need and obtain approval to proceed.
2. Plan and monitor the project—what to do, how to do it, and who does it.
3. Discover and understand the details of the problem or the need.
4. Design the system components that solve the problem or satisfy the need.
5. Build, test, and integrate system components.
6. Complete system tests and then deploy the solution.

The Waterfall model is infamous for not providing for iterations, and in general for lack of flexibility. It consists of:

1. Initiation.
2. Planning.
3. Analysis.
4. Design.
5. Implementation.
6. Deployment
7. Maintenance, support.

The Scrum Agile software development framework (Schwaber & Sutherland, 2020) proposes short iterative-incremental sprints, where each sprint includes the following events:

1. Sprint Planning – performed at the beginning of the sprint. 
2. Daily Scrum (or stand-up) meetings.
3. Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective – at the end of a sprint.
4. In Scrum, Backlog Refinement is an ongoing activity, not a discrete event.

ADDIE and SAM models for instructional design

The ADDIE model (Allen & Sites, 2012) consists of:

1. Analysis.
2. Design.
3. Development.
4. Implementation.
5. Evaluation.

The Successive Approximation Model - SAM:

OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act

The OODA loop for problem-solving and decision-making is formed of: observe, orient, decide, act (Boyd, 2018). It was designed in a military context by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd.

PDCA: plan, do, check, act

The PDCA management method (also known as OPDCA, or the Deming Cycle) is formed of: observe, plan, do, check, act (or adjust) (Liker & Franz, 2011).

Jolly frameworks!