Introduction
Walmart is a famous retail corporation that saves money and improves human lives globally. It promotes a commercialization partnership with Adobe to serve better customers (Walmart to offer technologies and capabilities, 2021). This paper focuses on the chosen information technology (IT) context and analyzes several project management methodologies and tools.
Methodologies
Scrum vs. Kanban
All companies have equal project management opportunities to lead teams, understand organizational goals, and produce results per clients’ needs. Walmart managers are free to implement any methodology, depending on their purposes, circumstances, and resources. Scrum is a methodology that allows employees to work together through detailed and restrictive planning and intervals where customer feedback is obtained and analyzed. This method is based on three pillars: transparency (a clear understanding of goals and responsibilities), inspection (empirical processes to control and evaluate work), and adaptation (an ability for managers to get ready for changes) (Malakar, 2021). Scrum is a highly prescriptive framework with small tasks for three accountabilities, namely, product owner, scrum master, and development team. If the company does not want to establish specific roles and regulate change, another methodology, Kanban, may be recommended. The main idea of Kanban is to visualize work, limit progress, and improve efficiency. As well as Scrum, Kanban has a simplified form of control and easy adaptation (Malakar, 2021). Their differences lie in cadence (Scrum is sprint fixed, and Kanban is continuous), focus (customers for Scrum, and quality for Kanban), and roles.
The comparison of Scrum and Kanban proves certain advantages and disadvantages for the Walmart IT project. The company offers its technologies and capabilities to other businesses and chooses Adobe for further collaboration to meet customers’ needs and introduce better services for differentiated experiences (Walmart to offer technologies and capabilities, 2021). Walmart would benefit from Scrum in this case due to its high planning capacities and the possibility to control performance speed. Various Walmart leverage technologies require workflow that could be changed anytime, which is Kanban’s priority. Although Kanban attracts attention by its commitment and continuous observations, Scrum makes it possible to learn what customers presume to get from this partnership and divide team responsibilities.
Waterfall vs. Agile
If Walmart wants to succeed in its commercializing project management, its leaders should consider implementing Waterfall or Agile methodologies. Waterfall is a traditional organizational method when management tasks have to be completed in a certain order to move to another phrase (Santos, 2021). In other words, people who choose this model participate in a linear and sequential process that consists of seven steps (data gathering, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, and delivery). Agile is an iterative model where feedback promotes responses and changes at each phase (Santos, 2021). It consists of small projects and pauses for analysis and evaluation, while Waterfall is one big project divided into phases. This method promotes interaction between employees, collaboration with clients, and change planning. Regarding the intention of Walmart to involve as many businesses as possible because of its partnership with Adobe, Agile methodology is appropriate for the implementation of several projects at the same time.
On the other hand, there are enough reasons to continue comparing Waterfall and Agile, and the Walmart IP project is ambiguous. For example, the company has one specific goal to establish commercialization relationships with Adobe (Walmart to offer technologies and capabilities, 2021). Thus, it is necessary to gather information about a new partner, evaluate the situation, and deploy the process, and it is a part of a perfect Waterfall plan. At the same time, a variety of services offered by Walmart cannot permit the selection of one project manager for all processes, which plays an essential role in a linear approach. The Agile idea to neglect the choice of a dedicated manager is more attractive to Walmart in its current IT project. Both methodologies are grounded on strong principles, and Walmart may succeed with both options. However, the company should not ignore drawbacks before sharing final decision-making.
Tools
Gantt Chart
In addition to a properly chosen project management methodology, Walmart’s business project developers must understand what tools to use and manage all working processes effectively. This choice determines the quality of information about the project clearly and comprehensively, and many project managers prefer charts. A Gantt chart is one of the most prominent charts in today’s business management. Its creator, Henry Gantt, used the form of a bar chart where the vertical axis identifies the tasks, and the horizontal axis represents the time span (Mall, 2018). In this chart, shaded parts show the length of time for each task, and unshaded parts indicate the lax (flexible) time (Mall, 2018). Walmart managers are able to observe the completion of each process and relate all tasks.
Gantt charts make it possible to review project tasks and understand when final results should be achieved. In the Walmart IT project, there are many areas for improvement, including the integration of Walmart’s Marketplace, the implementation of the Adobe Commerce platform, and the combination of available technologies (Walmart to offer technologies and capabilities, 2021). A Gantt chart is a unique overview of all tasks to manage resources, track changes, balance employees’ responsibilities, and set realistic deadlines.
Work Breakdown Structure
Work breakdown structure (WBS) is another practical way for Walmart to manage its IT project. If the decision to break down the commercialization process into milestones is made, WBS can be properly implemented in this case. Although there are no statistics, figures, and time-frames in this tool, the users get a chance to represent all activities and sub-activities as per their hierarchical levels (Mall, 2018). WBS is characterized by increased productivity, accountability, and transparency in project management. Walmart employees will find it hard to track the connection between tasks and deal with unclear deadlines, unplanned changes, and unstable delivery requirements.
PERT Chart
The project evaluation and review technique, or a PERT chart, is one more popular project management tool for scheduling and monitoring tasks. Walmart enhances the shopping experience for customers by using various technologies and resources (Walmart to offer technologies and capabilities, 2021). As there are no specific deadlines for this goal, the duration of activities does not matter. PERT charts are activity networks with boxes and arrows to guide the team and prove each task’s dependency (Mall, 2018). Sometimes, project managers are confused about parallel activities to be taken simultaneously, but problems disappear as soon as some experience is obtained.
Conclusion
Project management activities have to be properly identified and examined. Walmart focuses on the integration of technologies into Adobe activities. Methodologies like Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, and Agile help deal with certain situations in the IT project, while Gantt, WBS, and PERT charts are necessary to present information and control tasks.
Reference List
Malakar, S. (2021) Agile in practice: practical use-cases on project management methods including Agile, Kanban and Scrum. New Delhi: BPB Publications.
Mall, R. (2018) Fundamentals of software engineering. 5th edn. Delhi: PHI Learning.
Santos, J.M.D. (2021) Agile vs. Waterfall: differences in software development methodologies.