| Course | PM 350 Organizational Project Management (PM/350) |
|---|---|
| Week | 2 |
| Paper type | Methodology comparison paper |
| Length | about 1,029 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | BS in Business |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PM 350 Week 2
Terminals, an App and a Helpline: Matching Project Phases and Methodologies to Three Projects at a State Lottery
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
PM/350: Organizational Project Management
Week 2 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The Prairie State Lottery and its projects are composites; all figures are invented for a model paper.
Week 1 recommended organizational project management for the Prairie State Lottery, a composite agency in Topeka, Kansas, that runs 14 projects with no shared approach. One question from that work was whether a common approach means a single methodology. This paper answers by comparing project phases and methodologies and applying them to three of the lottery's projects: replacing terminals at about 1,800 retailers, launching a mobile app for second-chance drawings and expanding a problem gambling helpline with a text and chat service.
Phases Versus Methodologies
Phases describe the life of a project; methodologies describe how work is organized and controlled within it. Most projects pass through recognizable phases: initiating, when the need is defined and the project authorized; planning, when scope, schedule and resources are organized; executing, when the work is done; monitoring and controlling, which runs alongside execution; and closing, when results are accepted and the team released (Project Management Institute [PMI], 2021). These phases appear even in agile projects, although planning and execution repeat in short cycles. Keeping the phases common lets the lottery set the same decision points for every project while letting the work inside them differ.
Five Methodologies Compared
Predictive (waterfall): plans scope, schedule and cost in detail early, then executes against that plan. Strong where requirements are stable and changes are expensive. Weak when users cannot describe needs in advance.
Scrum: delivers in fixed sprints of one to four weeks, with a product owner, a development team and a scrum master, and reviews working results each sprint. Strong for software with evolving needs. Needs engaged users and a dedicated team.
Kanban: visualizes a continuous flow of work and limits work in progress. Strong for steady streams of requests such as support or maintenance. Offers little structure for one-time deliverables with fixed dates.
Lean: focuses on value and waste removal across a process. Strong for improving existing operations. Better as a set of principles than as a full project method.
Critical chain: schedules around resource constraints and pools buffers at the end of chains rather than in each task. Leach (1999) described how this approach, drawn from the theory of constraints, can shorten project durations when multitasking and padded estimates are the main problems.
Selection Criteria
Research suggests that methodology matters but is not a universal fix. Joslin and Müller (2015) studied projects in many countries and found that the use of a project management methodology was associated with project success, and that the governance context influenced that relationship. Gemino et al. (2021), comparing several hundred projects, found that teams mixing agile and traditional practices did no worse than purely agile teams, a result that supports blending methods where projects contain different kinds of work. The lottery therefore uses four criteria: how stable and well understood the requirements are, how much regulation and audit apply, how costly a mistake in the field would be and how easily users can test early versions.
The right methodology is the one whose assumptions match the project, not the one with the best reputation.
Project 1: Retailer Terminal Replacement
Requirements are stable: the terminals must sell every game, print tickets, validate wins and meet the security standards in the vendor contract and state rules. Regulation is heavy, since each terminal handles regulated sales and audit trails. A mistake in the field is costly: a terminal that fails on a Saturday night of a large jackpot means lost sales and angry retailers. Users, the retailers, can test a pilot but not every iteration. The recommendation is predictive delivery with staged rollout: a pilot in 40 stores, then six regional waves of about 300 stores, each starting only after the previous wave meets an error-rate target. Because the same field technicians are needed in every wave, critical chain buffering is used for the installation schedule.
Project 2: Mobile Second-Chance App
Players use the app to scan non-winning tickets for entry into drawings. Requirements are uncertain: the lottery does not know which features players will use. Regulation applies to drawing rules and data privacy but not to every screen. Mistakes are relatively cheap to fix. Players can test easily. The recommendation is Scrum with two-week sprints, a product owner from the marketing division and a release to a test group of 500 players before public launch. Drawing rules and privacy terms are fixed early and treated as non-negotiable constraints within the backlog.
Project 3: Expanded Helpline
The responsible gaming division wants to add text and chat to a phone helpline run by a contracted counseling provider. Requirements are partly known: the service must connect callers to trained counselors quickly, but no one knows how many people will text rather than call or what hours they need. Regulation applies to confidentiality. Mistakes affect vulnerable people, so care is needed, but small pilots are safe. The recommendation is an iterative pilot: a three-month trial in two counties, reviewed monthly with the provider, followed by statewide rollout planned predictively using the pilot's data. Requests for small changes during the pilot are managed on a Kanban board, with no more than three changes in progress at once so that counselors are not retrained every week.
Common Rules Across Methods
Different methods do not mean no common approach. Every project, whatever its method, must pass the same three gates set in Week 1, report monthly on the same one-page template showing scope, schedule, cost, risks and benefits in the same colors and record expected benefits and how they will be measured. Agile projects report on releases and backlog progress in the same template. This lets the leadership team compare a terminal rollout with an app sprint on one page.
Conclusion
Phases give every lottery project the same shape; methodologies give each the working style its content demands. Applying four criteria to three projects produced three answers: predictive delivery with staged rollout and resource buffers for terminals, Scrum for the app and an iterative pilot with Kanban for the helpline. Common gates, status reports and benefit records hold this variety together, which is the point of organizational project management.
References
Gemino, A., Horner Reich, B., & Serrador, P. M. (2021). Agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches to project success: Is hybrid a poor second choice? Project Management Journal, 52(2), 161-175. https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972820973082
Joslin, R., & Müller, R. (2015). Relationships between a project management methodology and project success in different project governance contexts. International Journal of Project Management, 33(6), 1377-1392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2015.03.005
Leach, L. P. (1999). Critical chain project management improves project performance. Project Management Journal, 30(2), 39-51. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697289903000207
Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.
What the PM 350 Week 2 instructions ask
In Week 2, PM 350 students are often asked to describe project phases and compare project management methodologies, such as predictive or waterfall, Scrum and other agile methods, Kanban, Lean, PRINCE2 or critical chain, and to recommend methods for particular projects or organizations. Prompts may ask about the strengths and limits of each, the conditions that favor one over another and how methodology choice relates to organizational strategy or governance. Use the organization from Week 1 or a scenario provided, apply the comparison to real projects and support the reasoning with the standard and scholarly research in APA format. A short comparison list helps, but the analysis should explain the choice, not only describe the options.
How this PM 350 Week 2 example is built
The model paper places three of the lottery's projects side by side. It first describes the generic phases most projects pass through, from initiating to closing, and explains why the phases stay even when methods differ. Five methodologies are then compared in a short list: predictive, Scrum, Kanban, Lean and critical chain, each with its best fit and its limits. Selection criteria such as requirement stability, regulation, the cost of a mistake in the field and user access are applied to each project. The result is predictive delivery with staged regional rollout for terminals, Scrum for the app and an iterative pilot for the helpline. A final section sets the gates, status format and benefit record every project must use, whatever its method.
PM 350 Week 2 grading rubric: where the points go
Assessment of this paper focuses on judgment. Graders look for accurate descriptions of phases and methodologies, a comparison that names real strengths and limitations and criteria that are applied to specific projects. Recommending different methods for different work, with reasons drawn from the projects' characteristics, earns strong credit, as does recognizing that the organization needs some common rules across methods. Research on methodology fit and on hybrid approaches strengthens the argument. Papers that tie methodology to governance or strategy, the course's organizational lens, score higher. A clear comparison format, logical structure and tidy APA citations account for whatever marks are left.
PM 350 Week 2 help: mistakes to avoid
A frequent problem is describing each methodology in detail and then recommending one for everything. If the projects differ, the methods probably should too. Another is confusing phases with methods: phases describe the life of a project, methodologies describe how work is organized within it. Students also present agile as always better, which ignores regulated or physical work where mistakes are costly in the field. Use criteria. Some papers forget the organizational view and never say how the agency keeps a common picture when projects use different methods. Name the shared minimum. Finally, cite research for claims about outcomes rather than repeating vendor marketing. A tutor can check whether your criteria actually lead to your recommendations.
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PM 350 Week 2 questions, answered
What does PM 350 Week 2 usually cover?
It usually covers project phases and methodologies: the life cycle stages most projects share and how methods such as predictive, Scrum, Kanban, Lean and critical chain compare and suit different projects.
Where can I find a free PM 350 Week 2 sample paper?
The Week 2 methodology comparison above, applied to three projects at a composite state lottery, can be read free from start to finish.
What are the phases of a project?
Most projects pass through initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing, though the names and number of phases vary by organization and method.
What is the difference between Scrum and Kanban?
Scrum organizes work into fixed-length sprints with defined roles and events. Kanban manages a continuous flow of work with limits on work in progress and no fixed iterations.
Can one organization use several project management methodologies?
Yes. Many organizations allow different methods for different kinds of projects while requiring common gates, reporting and governance so leaders can compare and oversee them.
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