Real life examples of methodologies and lifecycles.

Question

Choosing the correct lifecycle and methodology isn't as easy as it was before (when there weren't so many methodologies, this days a new one emerges every day).

I've found that most projects require a certain level of evolution and that each project is different from the rest. That way, extreme programming works with for a project for a given company with 15 employees but doesn't quite work with a 100 emp company or doesn't work for a given project type (for example real time application, scientific application, etc).

I'd like to have a list of experiences, mostly stating the project type, the project size (number of people working on it), the project time (real or planned), the proyect lifecycle and methodology and if the project succeded or failed. Any other data will be appreciated, I think we might find some patterns if there's enough data. Of course, comments are welcomed.

• PS: Very large, PT: Very long, LC: Incremental-CMMI, PR: Success
• PS: Very large, PT: Very long, LC: Waterfall-CMMI, PR: Success

Edit: I'll be constructing a "summary" with the stats of all answers.

Answer 1

My personal experience:

• Project size: Very large (150+ persons)
• Project time: Very long (+6 years)
• Project income (estimated): 40 Million $ (Military is paying)
• Project life cycle: Incremental lyfetime. Main milestones every year.
• Project structure: Traditional at first (system department, development department, etc) not so good. Process based later (the process establish a flow of work, requirements, design, implementation, test, feedback, metrics): quite good so far.
• Project result: success (so far)

Answer 2

Here you go:

• Project size: about 1 million lines of code, 30 people
• Project time: 9 years
• Project life cycle: good old waterfall, due to big customers requirements, but with staggered delivery to the QA team - it is very difficult to be agile when you have customers commitments to large clients
• Project structure: we are organized in departments but we use CMMI to keep them in sync - we have stakeholders, work products, deviance procedures, etc.
• Project result: we've really improved with the implementation of CMMI and have delivered our last few releases on time every time

-C.