“The Path” sounds pretty heavy, but it exists out there in the amorphous world of SDLC methodologies and more accurately, the PLC. It is that common abstraction and line that runs through each but might not be so easy to articulate. You might liken this Path to the common truths that religions share without being called ridiculous. You would be left with a wonderfully broad palette of tools and discoveries resultant from freedom. I was a philosopher so religion kind of slid aside for me and was trumped even theoretically by the proclamation that I cannot worship a God I do not know exists. Pascal’s Wager is a cop out, although it is still used in IT “Best Practices”. The whole idea of Best Practices is absurd unless you restrict it to a very definite activity, at which point it defines that activity and you have a tautology. Every project methodology shares the same *fundamental* goals. Every project shares something.
Just like religion, once instantiated in a human being or group, it can become enlightening and serve as a source of strength or if you are a skeptic, an imperfect but workable guide. It can also rip a team apart faster than an army of Google Recruiters. Here is where something fairly subtle has created a problem; it is a problem that needs immediate remediation.
You have a project lifecycle (PLC) and it details your project from start to finish. You also have a software development lifecycle (SDLC), which details the way the “work” happens and the stuff gets done. The PLC is a kind of container for the SDLC.
I am not sure that this Path (PLC) is anything more than one of Ayer’s Universals, to be honest. Sure, to have an end you need a beginning, but is that a construct or acho fundamental truth? Or, is it the way we have chosen and come to understand the world? A PLC is a way to choose to understand the process of a project. It is something you might find in an employee handbook, or “The Book That Describes OUR Process”. Once you get into the SDLC, there is magic and other cool stuff that is not so easy to capture without doing. I really do not care if you have a Scrum or an XP or a Waterfall SDLC. Compare it to another instance of the same. There will be differences. They may be small, but they will be *important*.
A PLC and an SDLC are both methodologies, although quite different in the amount of science that can go into them as opposed to the amount of theory (in this case, science is objective work). The PMI insists that they do not teach a methodology. Still, they produce PMPs, which are people who have mastered their Book of Knowledge. Book of Knowledge? If you did not know, yes, they really call it that. There is a PMBOK, or Project Management Book of Knowledge. You get it as part of a package with logos all over it. Apparently, some long-bearded geek came stumbling down a hill with it one day and fell down, proclaiming the way has been revealed. You just need to go buy some PDUs, spend a little money every so often, and you will also glow with the wisdom within the Book of Knowledge.
I didn’t say it sounds like Scientology. I didn’t.