A project is unique and temporary. Unique because it’s not a routine phenomenon and Temporary because it has a defined start and defined end concerning the designated schedule, and it also has a specific scope to solve specific problems.
As a project is not a routine operation, a project manager, project team, and other partners don’t usually work together but share the same goal: completing a project while competing against time and ensuring it meets the objectives within a designated budget. Every project has a start, a middle period during which the whole team efforts to lead the project toward successful completion, followed by an ending that can either be successful or unsuccessful in terms of multiple factors like budget, deliverables, and schedule.
Every project has the following four phases
- Initiation
- Planning
- Implementation
- Closure
All these phases address different agendas and phenomenons.
As a breakdown of a large project, these phases portray how a project completes its journey from the beginning to the end. Thus, together, compose a project “life cycle.”
Initiation Phase:
During the initiation phase, the objective or requirement of a project is figured out. It can be a business-oriented issue or a solution. Documentation of possible responses to the problem as an available solution is carried out. An in-depth process is launched to inspect which solution fulfills the project requirements more efficiently, and a final solution is determined.
Decisions to be taken after a case study include:
- Feasibility: Can we deliver the required outcomes?
- Justification: Why should we do the project?
- After the approval of a suggested solution, a project is initiated to produce desired outcomes in accordance with the approved solution.
- The final deliverables & the partner entities are identified, and the project team starts molding into shape.
Once the project manager approves further action, a project then enters into the planning phase.
Planning Phase:
During the planning phase, the project solution further evolves to meet the project’s objective. It is also known as “scope management.” In this step, the team distinguishes all tasks to be done. The resources and requirements, along with the strategy to process them, are identified. A project plan is outlined concerning the roadmap which contains timeframe, activities, and dependencies. The project manager prepares an estimated project budget by listing cost estimates for the labor, equipment, hardware, or software costs. The budget is monitored to control cost expenditures throughout the project.
Once the team members identify the tasks, fix the schedule, and estimates the costs, the three crucial components of the planning process, a project team starts figuring out possible risks or threats that can damage or slow down a project and the necessary steps to counter these issues are taken. This approach is known as “Risk management.”
In the risk management stage, threats that can cause hurdles are identified along with the measures that must be taken to curb these problems. These steps put into consideration can either reduce the probability of problem occurrence or reduce the impact of a disaster on the project if unavoidable.
During this phase, identifying all stakeholders and developing a communication strategy are carried out to address the required information and the delivery method after completion.
After all the planning is done, the need for proper documentation still exists. At this point, detailed documentation of a project is carried, and a project becomes ready to be executed.
Execution Phase:
The Execution phase is also known as the implementation phase. At this stage, project planning is turned into action, and the work starts. It is crucial to hold control as needed during execution. Communication barriers must be broken to maintain transparency. Progress is critically observed, and necessary adjustments are made. A deviation in planning is recorded as a variation against the original script.
In every project, a project manager spends most of his effort during this phase as the team members are carrying out their designated jobs, and progress is being reported consistently by summoning regular conventions. The project manager uses the available information to maintain equilibrium and vector a project in the right dimension by comparing the progress reports with the project plan to calculate the degree of performance linked with project-related activities and make corrections or changes if required. The priority should always be to pull the project back on track. Project stakeholders should be kept updated with the live status of the project.
Reports that reflect the project status should always focus on the expected endpoint in terms of cost, schedule, and quality of the final product. Once the execution phase enters into climax state, and a customer accepts the final version, a project moves towards closure.
Closing Phase:
During the Closure phase, a focus relies on providing a final product to the customer, handing over project documentation to the sponsors and other key stakeholders, terminating third-party contractors, releasing occupied resources, and communicating the completion of the project to all stakeholders.
The last move is to run a lessons-learned inspection to categorize bright and dark sides. By running such an analysis process, learnings from experience are returned to the organization, so they can assist future project teams in the light of previously known information and judgment.
Some Project management lifecycles also have the fifth phase, called the controlling or monitoring phase, but in most cases, these phases are put under the execution and closure phases.
Conclusion:
Project managers have a job to plan and execute a project intelligently. A project is something that needs to be completed within a designated budget and has fix starting and fix ending points. Demand for Project managers around the globe is escalating. Project Management Professional certification or PMP certification training is an internationally recognized certification for project management to achieve notable success in this field. PMP certification training is composed of education, skill, and experience mandatory to drive and manage projects. This certification training can be useful in different fields including military strategies, construction, banking, IT, engineering, and other industrial or corporate job roles.