Extreme project management

Extreme project management (XPM) refers to a method of managing very complex and very uncertain projects.

Extreme project management differs from traditional project management mainly in its open, elastic and undeterministic approach. The main focus of XPM is on the human side of project management (e.g. managing project stakeholders), rather than on intricate scheduling techniques and heavy formalism.

Extreme project management corresponds to extreme programming.

Advanced approaches to extreme project management utilize the principles of human interaction management to deal with the complexities of human collaboration.

As it is known, the software industry is a fast growing domain and in constant development and change. Despite the fact that there are plenty of methodologies and techniques used when it comes to project management, some new, and others that have been used for decades, extreme project management is one of the modern approaches to project management in this industry.

Given that requirements are constantly changing and technology is evolving very rapidly, extreme projects move forward very fast and allow for teams to work in shorter timelines, being able to better understand and approve each other's ideas and work.

For extreme project management to produce rapid change, it is necessary for all team members to communicate and reach full understanding. This method is used during the project execution and change control process and it is not allowed to be used for overall strategy or project prioritization.

To produce project plans, XPM uses a concept similar to rapid application development (RAD) called rapid application planning (RAP). Stakeholders are invited by the project manager to the RAP session where a sequence of steps (including planning the project) is run so that the best decisions are taken.

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