A breakdown of 6 essential project management methodologies

Key takeaways

• Choose a methodology based on your project’s constraints, complexity, team, and expected changes—not popularity.

• Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban suit evolving requirements and fast feedback.

• Waterfall is best for fixed-scope, sequential projects.

• Lean maximizes value by reducing waste.

Let’s be honest—the same project management framework usually doesn’t work across all project types. No two are alike, which means the same plan of action for one might not work for another.

That’s why there are different project management methodologies you can follow for your specific needs. Maybe you already know a few of these methodologies, but do you know what projects work best for each process?

Read this guide as we break down the six most popular project management methodologies you should know to successfully reach your project objectives.

What is a project management methodology?

A project management methodology is a system or technique used to perform a task or execute a goal. There are several common methodologies—each with its own unique structured framework, rules, and principles to guide teams through planning and execution.

Every project management methodology comes with unique strengths and weaknesses. Skilled project managers select the most suitable framework by carefully considering the project’s requirements, stakeholders, timeline, and team dynamics. 

How to choose the best project management methodology

Selecting the right project management methodology is more important to your team’s success than you think. As you start your next project kickoff, you must consider your goals, team structure, and organizational needs to understand which framework will deliver the best results.

To pair the right project with the most impactful system, first consider these factors:

• Project budget: How much money will be spent on the project.

• Timeline: When the project is due or the required deadlines.

• Goals: The project’s end goals and deliverables.

• Values: The organizational goals and values that apply to this project.

• Complexity and scale: The skill-level or amount of resources needed to complete the project.

• Flexibility: The versatility or rigidity of the project’s end goals, timelines, deliverables, and team or stakeholder expectations.

• Project type and industry: The variables of the project and how they parallel with the specific industry.

• Team: The size of the team, experience levels, skill diversity, and collaboration and communication methods.

6 popular project management methodologies

Understanding the strengths of different project management methodologies lets you choose the right approach for your team. 

Choosing the most appropriate project management methodology will reduce risk, improve efficiency, and ensure quality results. Everything depends on your team, resources, and the type of project.

To make the decision easier, here’s a breakdown of the six most-popular project management frameworks:

1. Agile

Agile is more than a methodology—it’s a set of principles designed for fast, flexible, and collaborative project delivery. 

This methodology is ideal for small teams. The Agile project management framework emphasizes short, iterative cycles (sprints), minimal bureaucracy, and rapid adaptation to change. 

By reducing blockers like excessive documentation and meetings, Agile keeps teams focused and responsive. 

Frameworks like Scrum and Kanban provide structure, while continuous customer feedback and iterative improvement ensure projects meet evolving needs. Agile’s adaptability makes it a strong choice for dynamic, collaborative projects.

2. Scrum

If Agile is a set of principles for fast and adaptive teamwork, then Scrum is one of the most widely used frameworks to put those principles into practice.

Scrum is a subset of Agile that breaks projects into time-boxed iterations called sprints or Scrum sprints. These sprints typically run in cycles lasting two to four weeks. 

This methodology is ideal for website overhauls with a development team, supporting continuous improvement and evolving task lists. Consider how enhancing a website’s customer journey requires ongoing iteration to keep pace with changing customer expectations and digital landscape. 

The goal of Scrum is to develop, build, deliver, and sustain complex products using small collaborative and highly accountable teams and iterative task lists. 

There are roles, events, and Scrum artifacts. Roles include a product owner, development team, and Scrum master, while events include sprints, daily scrums, or standup meetings, and artifacts include product and sprint backlogs.

Project teams and stakeholders play a crucial role in Scrum. Their engagement and communication are key to project success. 

Cross functional collaboration is essential in Scrum as well. It allows teams from different disciplines to work together efficiently for successful delivery.

3. Kanban

Similarly to Scrum, Kanban is another project management methodology that follows Agile principles. Kanban is a visual project management methodology focusing on optimizing workflows and minimizing project bottlenecks.

Kanban is also ideal for projects that are done by small, flexible, and collaborative teams, but requires a highly visual aspect.

Tasks are visually displayed in-person on sticky notes or Kanban boards that use columns as they progress. Kanban boards are used to visualize tasks and workflows with tasks moving from a backlog through the board’s columns.

This represents the various stages of the process from the backlog—start to finish. With visual representations of backlogged work, work in progress, and completed tasks, this framework is great for most projects requiring changes across multiple statuses.

This would also be helpful for your second project, in particular, to keep track of tasks’ status as they move throughout the creative process. 

For example, designing a webpage for the new line of products will have various steps and creative team members involved. Kanban boards help teams visualize and track project progress throughout the project life cycle. 

Visually seeing how the project is progressing will help you and the team to see how it’s coming along and where blockers are.

4. Scrumban

What happens when you blend the speed of Scrum with the flexibility of Kanban? You get Scrumban—a hybrid project management methodology designed to offer the best of both worlds.

Scrumban combines Scrum’s sprint-based planning and regular reviews with Kanban’s continuous workflow and pull-based task management. 

Instead of planning all tasks at the start of a sprint, this method allows your team to pull new work from the backlog as capacity allows. This keeps projects moving smoothly without overloading anyone. 

Work-in-progress limits (WIP) from Kanban help prevent bottlenecks, while Scrum ceremonies—like standups and retrospectives—ensure ongoing collaboration and improvement.

Scrumban usually works best for those needing the structure of Scrum but crave the flexibility and visual clarity of Kanban. If your team’s workload is unpredictable and in a fast-paced environment, this method lets you adapt quickly to changing priorities.

5. Lean

For those organizations looking to transform how they do business, the lean methodology should be considered. 

Lean project management is a methodology focused on efficiency and customer value. It aims to maximize value while minimizing waste. 

Process improvement is a core principle of Lean project management. This is a great way to put out quality work while increasing efficiencies that minimize unnecessary spending, resources, teams output, or time.

Lean was created in the Japanese manufacturing industry to improve quality control and remove redundancies that may increase the price or value for customers down the line. The Toyota Production System is the origin of Lean.

It revolutionized production efficiency through principles like just-in-time production and demand-based control. Now, Lean principles are used across many industries to improve efficiency and eliminate unnecessary work.

Known as the three M’s, Lean methodology defines three types of project waste: muda, mura, and muri.

• Muda is about getting rid of the waste or anything that doesn’t add value.

• Mura streamlines processes, so if one aspect of the project takes too long, for instance, then something further down the task list will have to be completed faster.

• Muri is about removing blockers, such as too many stakeholder meetings.

6. Waterfall

Also known as waterfall project management, the Waterfall methodology is a tried-and-true framework that’s been around since the 1970s. It’s a traditional approach characterized by a linear, sequential process where each phase flows downward to the next.

Waterfall is best suited for projects with a well-defined project scope and minimal changes. The Waterfall method requires a very solid understanding of the end goal and the necessary steps to get there. 

This framework manages the entire project through defined project phases, with each dependent on the completion of the previous one. The more structured approach is commonly used for software projects.

These projects typically follow a sequential process—requirements, design, implementation, verification, and maintenance—with little room for error or flexibility. This approach works best for familiar projects that require minimal adaptation.

You should consider this methodology for large-scale marketing projects that you’ve similarly run in the past. Choose this if your process is air tight and well-documented—where you shouldn’t expect any surprises.

Collect and analyze any and all project requirements and deadlines. This requires a lot of up-front work and planning.

It is important to identify crucial tasks and task dependencies. A similar methodology (not listed here) is the Critical Path Method (CPM), which is used to determine the sequence of essential tasks that must be completed to meet the deadline. 

Then design your approach so each stage is completed in sequence and meets its deadline before reviewing the plan and putting it into action.

Your team’s success starts with choosing the right project methodology

There are many more methodologies to name and discuss—and picking the right one for your project can be tricky. It's all about choosing a system that works for you, your project, and your team.

Project management methodologies were created to help you deliver the best possible outcomes based on your project's circumstances. Take your time to find what works best, try them out, and do a debrief with your team on what worked and what didn't. 

Project management software like Jira empowers thousands of teams to get their projects across the finish line and on time. Whichever method you choose, Jira has the tools, views, and workflows you need.