Chapter 1
Foundations of Project Management
Course: Pmp Test Prep
Subject: Pmp
Chapter: Life Cycles Development Approaches And Focus Areas 5506 10738
How a project creates and evolves its product is a decision distinct from how it is phased — and it is one of the most consequential choices a project manager makes.
This lesson works through the three development approaches that sit along a spectrum from fully planned to fully flexible: predictive, adaptive, and hybrid.
It examines what each approach is, when it fits, and the mechanisms that distinguish them — from the integrated baseline and incremental delivery of predictive work, to the timeboxed iterations and flow-based scheduling of adaptive work, to the four patterns and three levels of hybrid combinations.
The throughline is that the approach must match the project's certainty and volatility: stable, well-understood work rewards up-front planning, while uncertain, evolving work rewards continuous feedback — and most modern projects land somewhere in between.