Judgment Required

Because of product and project management's long history of favoring serial development processes, any figure like that of Figure 4.1 can take on a serial appearance. However, while a project may follow the general sequence of Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close, the entire model should be considered fluid. The wording of production-style models implies linearityInitiate, Plan, Manage, Controlwhile the APM terms were selected to imply iterative evolutionSpeculate, Explore, Adapt.

An overemphasis on linearity leads to stagnation, just as an overemphasis on evolution leads to endless, and eventually mindless, change. With either model, development team members, customer team members , and executives need to exercise keen judgment in its application.