Effective Software Project Management

Managing Concurrent Swim Lanes

The Linear SDPM strategy for the Standard Waterfall model has but one swim lane, so it doesn’t have many of the problems that accompany the Linear SDPM strategy for the Rapid Development Waterfall model. Because the major phases are linear, scheduling problems arise when one phase is delayed for whatever reason. The delay is passed forward to the next phase where there is an expectation that the delay will somehow be nullified. Maybe, but most likely not. More likely, it will be passed forward again until the life cycle has run its course and the project completes late.

If there are any additional scheduling problems with the Linear SDPM strategy, it will be with the Rapid Development Waterfall model. Delays in the Linear SDPM strategy for the Rapid Development Model cause the same scheduling difficulties as delays do in the Linear SDPM strategy for the Standard Waterfall plus a few more. When a delay occurs in one of the swim lanes and that swim lane has downstream tasks that are predecessors to tasks in other swim lanes the scheduling slippage on the home swim lane now spreads to the dependent swim lane(s). The results can be catastrophic. Because various types of skilled resources are working in parallel, their cross–swim lane schedules are highly dependent upon one another. A slippage in just one swim lane can reverberate through the entire project.