What is adaptive project management?

A project‌ — ‌any project‌ — ‌is a living, breathing animal. If you’ve ever begun a project that didn’t go through tens, if not hundreds, of turns, tweaks, evolutions, and iterations before it reached the end, you’re a lucky breed. Must be nice. We wouldn’t know.

For projects that constantly evolve, project management needs to evolve too. This is where using the adaptive approach in project management can save you time, and certainly, a lot of stress. Adaptive project management is a flexible approach to managing projects that emphasizes continuous learning, adaptation, and improvement. Essentially, instead of trying to put the train back on the rails, adaptive project management allows you to rebuild the rails.

As opposed to traditional project management, like predictive project management, adaptive project management better equips you to deal with change, complexity, and shifting priorities throughout the lifecycle of the project. e.g., all the things that are virtually guaranteed to happen.

Characteristics of an adaptive approach in project management

The adaptive project management framework prioritizes things a little differently than traditional project management, which tends to follow a rigid, linear path from start to finish. Some of the defining characteristics of an adaptive approach are:

Iterative cycles
Responsiveness to change
Emphasis on ongoing collaboration and feedback
A customer-centric attitude
Lightweight planning
Self-organizing teams
Risk mitigation
Flexible scope

Fortunately, it’s not a checklist. You can incorporate some of the characteristics of an adaptive approach to create a bespoke adaptive project management methodology that works for you and your team.

Understanding the difference between Agile and adaptive project management

While Agile itself is a specific type of adaptive project management, the term encompasses any flexible project management methodology that adapts to uncertainty and embraces change. There are some key differences in the characteristics of adaptive project management in general and a more specific Agile approach.

An example of an agile framework diagram in Mural.

Adaptive vs. predictive project management: What's the best approach?

Let’s discuss the difference between a predictive and adaptive approach in project management, and which might work best for you and your team. Predictive project management is a more traditional approach to project management. It aims to define the project’s scope, time, and cost as accurately as possible at the start. Then, it manages the project according to that plan with few changes. Essentially, the goal of predictive project management is to‌ — ‌you guessed it‌ — ‌predict how the project will go.

Whether you choose predictive project management over adaptive project management depends on the amount of uncertainty in your project before you kick off. Predictive project management can work within a highly structured and controlled project, while reducing the cognitive load of having to adapt your project framework as you go. You may want to proceed with a more traditional project management framework if:

Your project has a well-defined scope, requirements, and deliverables.
Budget, resources, timeline, and other constraints are fixed.
There’s low uncertainty and risk.
You have to adhere to strict regulatory and compliance requirements.
There are complex dependencies that could make changing your framework messy.
Your project is large-scale and/ or long-term.
You’re dealing with fixed contractual obligations that have to be established beforehand.
An oracle appeared to you and revealed exactly how your project will go (rare).

Adaptive project management, on the other hand, expects the unexpected. It may be a better approach when there’s a high chance of variability over the life of the project, your resourcing and budget are flexible, and you aren’t beholden to any regulatory or contract requirements. An adaptive approach in project management is especially helpful in dynamic industries like tech, marketing, product development, or any industry that has to remain responsive to a capricious market.

Top benefits of integrating adaptability in project management

If appropriate for your project and your team, moving forward with an adaptable project management methodology can benefit your project in a number of ways, including:

Better agility. Respond to changing priorities and constraints without setbacks and churn.
Improved customer satisfaction. By responding to customer feedback throughout the lifecycle of the project, you can better address their needs.
Speedy time to market. Continuous improvement means faster iterations.
Better risk management. By breaking work into smaller, iterative chunks, your team can better mitigate risk.
More innovation. Emphasizing collaboration and self-organizing teams leads to enhanced creativity and better ideas.
Less waste. Planning your moves in real time leads to less resource drain and wasted time.
Better visibility. The continuous check-ins required by an adaptive approach increase visibility within and among teams.
Continuous learning. An adaptive approach encourages frequent reflection on ways to improve processes and performance.
Ability to handle complexity. When projects get increasingly complex, your team will be better able to navigate a tangled web.

When to use an adaptive lifecycle in project management

We’ll be honest: Adaptive project management doesn’t work for every type of team or project! However, certain types of projects, which may be classified as “adaptive projects,” have a track record of better outcomes when using an adaptive project management methodology. Some projects that can benefit from an adaptive approach in project management are:

Software development. Software projects often have to adapt to changing technologies and user needs. Some software-specific examples of adaptive project management are Agile, Scrum, and Kanban.
Research and development. Exploring new technologies and markets benefits from an approach that allows teams to continuously innovate and improve.
Marketing campaigns. Adaptive project management allows marketing teams to quickly adjust based on market feedback or performance data.
Event planning. Events tend to involve a lot of moving parts and last-minute changes. An adaptive approach better equips you to deal with unexpected wrenches.
Product development. The iterative nature of design, prototyping, testing, and feedback lends itself to flexible, adaptive project management.
Startup ventures. The high uncertainty and risk involved in the startup process must respond quickly to a moving market and feedback from funders.
Creative projects. The adaptive approach allows creatives to continuously innovate, explore, and respond to resource or budget constraints.

Best practices to adopt an adaptive project framework

If you’ve decided to move forward with an adaptive approach for your project, there are a few best practices you can rely on to seamlessly implement an adaptive strategy.

Embrace change. Emphasize agility and flexibility over rigidity. Expect priorities and scope to change. Unlearn the phrase, “Well, this is the way we’ve always done it!”
Train your team. Get your team up to speed on frameworks like Agile, Scrum, or Kanban and make sure everyone understands the principles involved. Take advantage of Mural’s Agile project management tools to train your team.
Clearly define objectives. While it’s important to embrace flexibility, it’s paramount to have a north star. Remember what your project is meant to accomplish. Meeting with your team to set OKRs (huzzah!) can help define your goals. Start from this Mural template to get the ball rolling.
Tackle smaller, manageable tasks. Using iterative development cycles like sprints makes it easier to adapt to changes. Start with Mural’s Sprint Focus template to keep your teams on track.
Prioritize effectively. Make sure you know what’s urgent, what’s important, and what can wait. Check in with cross-functional teams to make sure priorities align. Mural’s Priority Bullseye template can help get teams on the same page.
Emphasize collaboration. Encourage open communication with team members and stakeholders. Ask for help when needed. When in doubt, check in!
Respond to feedback. Feedback is your friend. Take what customers, users, stakeholders, and team members say into consideration at every stage. Use Mural’s feedback templates to effectively collect and organize feedback.
Hold retrospectives. At the end of each development cycle, check in with your team to see what worked, what can be scrapped, and what can be improved upon. Mural’s Retrospective template can help you get the most out of your retrospectives.
Empower teams. Encourage smaller, autonomous teams to take ownership of their work and collaborate to solve problems. Each team can start with Mural’s Team Charter template to work together more effectively.
Close feedback loops with stakeholders. Check in frequently with stakeholders and leadership to collect feedback and make sure everyone’s priorities align.
Be proactive about risk management. Consider customer feedback and data to identify potential risks and make a plan to mitigate them. This simple Risk Wall template can help you identify risks and assess their impact.
Scale gradually. Scaling your project too much too fast can make it more difficult to unravel the knot if issues arise down the line. Start with pilot projects and smaller teams.

Run your adaptive projects collaboratively with Mural

Using Mural as an adaptive project management tool can help your team become more flexible, accountable, and efficient. Some tools, like Monday or Wrike, can be used as adaptive project management software, but lack the inherent visual collaboration tools your team needs to get aligned when the project shifts mid-lifecycle. Mural’s extensive template library can help you easily kick off projects, define goals, build your strategy roadmap, and organize sprint teams without the grunt work. Features like sticky notes, sharing, text chat, and voting allow you to easily centralize feedback and hold retrospectives to continuously improve your project as it goes. Mural also integrates with other platforms like Microsoft Suite, Google Suite, Adobe, Figma, Slack, Zoom, and Jira to connect teams better than ever before.

Seamlessly manage projects and build a more agile, adaptable team with Mural. Try it out today!