Project management methodology is just a fancy way of describing a system used to do something. Before you begin any project, you need the right project management tools, a good team, and you must know how you’re going to run the project. Some projects lend themselves to certain methodologies.

There are many, so let’s get started on a summary of the most widely used. To choose the right methodology for you and your project (or even decide on a hybrid methodology), you should know what they are.

The motivation behind the process of managing a project can seem inexplicable to some, especially if they’re not aware of the many methodologies that have been developed to organize complex plans.

1. Waterfall

The model is in six parts, beginning with capturing requirements in a document, creating models to analyze them, designing, coding, testing and installing and maintenance of that system. The model requires that you move from one phase to another only once that phase has been successfully completed.

This may be the most straightforward and linear of all the approaches to managing a project. The name is apt, as the waterfall methodology is a process in which the phases of the project flow downward. Waterfall often makes use of a Gantt chart for planning and scheduling. Waterfall is great for manufacturing and construction projects, which are highly structured and when it’s too expensive to pivot or change anything after the fact.

2. Critical Path Method (CPM)

The technique starts with a list of all activities, or a work breakdown structure, the duration of each task, what dependencies there are and then mapping milestones and deliverables. CPM works better with smaller or mid-sized projects. The larger the project, the more difficult it can be to take all the data you need to diagram and make sense of it without software.

In CPM, you build a model of the project, including all the activities listed in a work breakdown structure, the duration of those tasks, what if any task dependencies there are and marking off milestones to indicated larger phases of the project or points in which your deliverables are due. With this information, you determine what is the path to finish the project with the least slack.

3. Agile

In a nutshell, it’s an evolving and collaborative way to self-organize across teams. The work is adaptive in planning, evolutionary in development, seeking early delivery and is always open to change if that leads to improvement.

It has been applied to non-software products that seek to drive forward with innovation and have a level of uncertainty, such as computers, motor vehicles, medical devices, food, clothing, music and more; and it’s also being used in other types of projects that need a more responsive and fast-paced production schedule, such as marketing.

The core values of agile can be summed up as follows: individuals over processes, working software over detailed documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation and responding to change over rigid planning. There’s a passionate argument as to whether agile should even be considered a methodology, but as it’s used to run projects we’ll include it here. It’s fast and flexible, unlike waterfall.

4. Scrum

Scrum works within an agile framework, though there have been attempts to scale Scrum to fit larger organizations. Scrum is a short “sprint” approach to managing project. It’s ideal for teams of no more than 10 people, and often is wedded to two-week cycles with short daily meetings, known as daily scrum meetings. It’s led by what is called a Scrum master.

Like agile, scrum has been used predominantly in software development, but proponents note it is applicable across any industry or business, including retail logistics, event planning or any project that requires some flexibility.

5. Kanban

Agile teams use Kanban boards for story-boarding user stories and for backlog planning in software development. With the dawn of visual planning boards in software in our era, like Trello, there are now new uses for Kanban tools and Kanban methods.

Kanban is visual approach to project management methodology. The name is literally billboard in Japanese. It helps manage workflow by placing tasks on a Kanban board where workflow and progress is clear to all participants. Kanban helps improve inefficiencies, and has been used to schedule lean manufacturing in Agile projects.

Almost anyone can plan with Kanban boards, adding cards to represent project phases, task deadlines, people, ideas and more. Another process developed initially for manufacturing and for software teams, the Kanban method has since expanded and has been used in human resources, marketing, organizational strategy, executive process and accounts receivable and payable.

6. Event Chain Methodology

It’s ideal for projects with great uncertainty throughout the life cycle, which means that it can be applied to almost any project. ECM is based on six principles: moment of risk and state of activity, event chains, Monte Carlo simulations, critical event chains, performance tracking with event chains and event chain diagrams.

ECM emphasizes identifying and managing events that impact the project schedule. It’s related to the critical path method and critical chain project management software, and helps with more accurate estimating and scheduling plans.

7. Lean

Lean is what you’d think from its name: a way to cut waste and in so doing increase value. So, lean focuses on key processes to continuously be impacting positively on value. It does this by optimizing separate technologies, assets and verticals.

Among others in the manufacturing space and countless startups and software development firms looking to drive products focused on the end user. Lean was first developed by Toyota and is obviously a great methodology for manufacturing, but it has been adopted by construction and education industries.

Toyota picked up on the idea, as well, extending their idea beyond manufacturing to the process of the product. Lean as a method of project management goes back to Henry Ford and his flow production for automating the process of building cars.