What Is the Project Life Cycle? Project Phases Explained

There are numerous various kinds of tasks, however curiously, all of them have one factor in widespread. All of them undergo the identical cycle, referred to as the challenge life cycle, challenge lifecycle or challenge administration life cycle.

What Is the Venture Life Cycle?

The challenge life cycle is varied phases {that a} challenge goes by from inception to completion. It’s helpful because it gives challenge managers a structured method that helps with planning, execution and management. Whereas there are various completely different variations of the challenge life cycle, the most typical one is split into 5 phases together with initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and management and closure.

Who Manages the Venture Life Cycle?

The challenge supervisor is normally liable for managing the life cycle of a challenge. Nonetheless, when a company is executing a number of tasks, there’s normally a project management office (PMO) concerned, which consists of challenge managers, program managers and challenge portfolio managers, who collaborate to allocate organizational assets and successfully coordinate the efforts of staff.

It’s additionally necessary to notice that there are different key roles all through the challenge phases, such because the challenge sponsor, who leads the efforts of constructing a project proposal and presenting it to key stakeholders who approve the challenge and supply funding. Along with them, there are additionally the challenge staff members who execute the work.

The members of the challenge administration staff accountable for overseeing the challenge life cycle may fluctuate relying on the scale of the group and the complexity of the challenge. Nonetheless, each challenge administration staff wants challenge administration software program to handle the challenge phases.

ProjectManager is award-winning challenge administration software program geared up with instruments to plan, schedule and observe tasks from begin to end. Create challenge schedules, allocate assets, estimate prices and monitor the standing of tasks with Gantt charts, real-time challenge dashboards, workload administration charts and different on-line challenge administration instruments and options. Get began with ProjectManager totally free immediately.

The 5 Phases of the Venture Life Cycle

The challenge life cycle is made up of 5 challenge phases: challenge initiation, challenge planning, challenge execution, monitoring & management and challenge closing. Every of those phases is important for the efficient supply of the project.

Right here’s a basic description of the phases that make up the challenge life cycle and what are you able to do in every for profitable challenge supply. For instance, you’ll want to provide necessary project documentation at every step within the course of.

1. Venture Initiation Section

That is no doubt one of the necessary challenge phases, as that is when a project sponsor who advocates for a challenge concept begins gathering data to current a challenge proposal to a gaggle of stakeholders who determine whether or not to maneuver ahead with the challenge or not.

This challenge stage normally begins with a enterprise case, feasibility research, cost-benefit analysis and different sorts of analysis to find out whether or not the challenge is possible and may or shouldn’t be undertaken. That is the beginning of the challenge for the challenge supervisor, who’s appointed by the challenge sponsor and is liable for defining the challenge at a excessive stage and making a challenge constitution together with the challenge sponsor.

Stakeholders present enter throughout this course of too, and if the challenge constitution is authorised, a challenge staff is assembled and a project kickoff meeting takes place. After this, the challenge supervisor begins making a challenge plan, which marks the beginning of the challenge planning part.

After the challenge initiation, the challenge sponsor takes a secondary function all through the remaining challenge phases whereas the challenge supervisor is liable for overseeing the challenge planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and shutting phases.

2. Venture Planning Section

On this stage of a challenge, the challenge plan is created by the challenge supervisor. The challenge plan, or project management plan is a doc that explains in nice element how the challenge can be executed. Whereas there are some tips for making challenge plans, equivalent to these revealed by the challenge administration institute (PMI) within the challenge administration physique of data (PMBOK) or different organizations, challenge plans may fluctuate from one group to a different.

Nonetheless, any challenge administration plan ought to cowl these key areas:

• Venture Targets: The challenge plan begins by setting SMART (particular, measurable, attainable, real looking, well timed) objectives. Venture duties and deliverables can be geared in the direction of the completion of those objectives.
• Venture Scope Administration: The time period project scope refers to all of the duties that can be executed to finish a challenge. These are outlined in a scope administration plan, a subsection of the challenge plan that explains how duties can be executed, what their outcomes or deliverables are and their success standards, amongst many different necessary particulars.
• Venture Stakeholder Administration: That is the continuing strategy of figuring out, analyzing, planning, managing and monitoring interactions with individuals or teams which may be impacted by the challenge’s success.
• Venture Useful resource Administration: That is the way you make the most effective of your assets to attain your challenge objectives. It contains planning and allocating the individuals, tools, supplies and different belongings.
• Venture Funds Administration: That is the method of constructing a project budget and planning, monitoring and controlling a challenge’s monetary assets.
• Venture Schedule Administration: That is about figuring out what job must be completed at what level to make sure the challenge stays on schedule.
• Venture Change Administration: The method of guiding individuals by adjustments that might affect their roles inside a challenge. It helps them adapt easily if there are adjustments equivalent to new duties, deadlines or processes.
• Venture Threat Administration: Figuring out and coping with potential issues that might affect your challenge. It goals to establish points and decrease the affect ought to the danger come to fruition.
• Venture High quality Administration: That is about guaranteeing that the challenge delivers the precise outcomes whereas being aware of the required high quality requirements and satisfying the shopper.

3. Venture Executing Section

Now begins the part of the challenge that most individuals consider because the challenge: executing the duties, deliverables and milestones outlined within the challenge plan.

Some duties that make up the project execution phase embrace growing the staff and assigning assets utilizing key efficiency indicators, executing the challenge plan, procurement administration and monitoring and monitoring progress. If wanted, you may set standing conferences and revise the schedule and plan.

Throughout this stage, it’s necessary to make use of challenge administration software program to handle challenge duties, allocate resources, monitor prices and observe key challenge metrics.

4. Venture Monitoring and Controlling Section

The project monitoring and controlling part takes place concurrently with the challenge execution part and consists of organising controls and key efficiency metrics to measure the effectiveness of the challenge execution.

Monitoring and controlling is without doubt one of the most necessary phases of project management to verify the execution goes as deliberate.

To watch tasks successfully, challenge managers normally guarantee these steps are taken:

• Create Venture Baselines: The baseline is a hard and fast reference level that captures the unique challenge plan, normally together with the scope, schedule and cost baseline. It’s a useful challenge boundary that determines how successfully the challenge is executed.
• Set up Venture Metrics and Key Efficiency Indicators (KPIs): Subsequent, decide what project metrics and KPIs have to be tracked. Frequent examples embrace schedule variance, price variance, return on funding and extra.
• Set Up Venture Controls: Then, arrange project controls, that are the processes, instruments and strategies that assist monitor a challenge. They embrace issues equivalent to schedule, price, high quality, scope and danger.
• Use Venture Dashboards: These are important instruments for monitoring varied challenge metrics. They supply a visible illustration of stats like price, time, progress and extra. Many project dashboards are customizable to point out completely different metrics and a few are portfolio dashboards that present knowledge from throughout tasks.
• Create Venture Administration Studies: Studies assist share with challenge stakeholders as they’re a quick and straightforward technique to talk updates. Venture managers use customizable reports to share knowledge on statuses, duties, timesheets, workloads, variance and extra.

5. Venture Closing Section

The phases of challenge administration have to be wrapped up, and the life cycle isn’t over till the project closure part is over.

Finishing the deliverables to the satisfaction of your stakeholders is vital, after all, however the challenge supervisor should now disassemble the equipment created to meet the challenge. Meaning closing out work with contractors, ensuring everybody has been paid and guaranteeing that every one project documents are signed off on and archived to assist with planning future tasks.

As soon as this challenge administration life cycle part has been completed, the challenge supervisor usually has a autopsy assembly with the challenge staff to focus on what labored and what didn’t work, in order that successes may be repeated and errors prevented.

Primarily based on the insights and key takeaways from this assembly, challenge managers will then create a lessons learned document, which logs the challenges, failures and profitable outcomes from the challenge in order that the challenge administration staff can study from them for future tasks.

Understanding the Venture Administration Life Cycle

Jennifer Bridges, PMP, is our resident project management skilled. She hosts a whole bunch of our coaching movies, together with this one explaining the challenge administration life cycle. Delve deeper into the challenge administration phases by watching the video beneath.

How ProjectManager Helps Handle the Venture Life Cycle

ProjectManager is a sturdy challenge administration software program that gives a number of challenge views and options for every step of the challenge administration life cycle. Listed below are a few of its key challenge administration instruments.

Plan, Schedule and Observe with Gantt Charts

Our online Gantt chart helps you intend the challenge administration phases, amassing your job checklist right into a timeline. The period for every job can then be set and every job assigned to a staff member. Collaboration occurs on the job stage on the Gantt chart, the place staff members can remark and add related paperwork and pictures. They will even tag these not assigned to the duty and so they’ll be notified by electronic mail.

A number of Venture Administration Instruments

The Gantt chart is only one of ProjectManager’s challenge administration views that outlines the phases of challenge administration. You can even use the kanban view, dashboards, workload charts, timesheets and different instruments. Use kanban boards to visualise the workflow, the place playing cards symbolize the duties, holding staff members centered on what they’re engaged on and challenge managers get a fowl’s eye view. Sources may be reallocated and necessary dates, equivalent to holidays and trip days, are marked to know who can work when.

Create Venture Studies in Minutes

One-click reporting provides challenge managers the information to current to stakeholders on varied features of the challenge phases. These reviews may be filtered to point out the data you need and permit for deeper dives as needed. The real-time dashboard exhibits challenge metrics in colourful and easy-to-read graphs and charts, supplying you with essentially the most correct image of your challenge’s progress.

Extra Venture Administration Templates to Handle the Venture Life Cycle

We now have created dozens of project management templates to assist challenge managers handle every part of the challenge life cycle. Listed below are a few of them.

Project Charter Template

The challenge constitution is the primary final result of the challenge initiation part. Our free challenge constitution template is a superb place to start out constructing your challenge and get it authorised by stakeholders.

Project Plan Template

A challenge plan is a radical challenge administration doc that guides the challenge execution. Our free challenge plan template is totally customizable, so you may embrace what issues most to your challenge.

Project Budget Template

Our free challenge price range template is a superb place to begin to assemble your challenge duties, estimate their prices and create a fundamental challenge price range. Nonetheless, for those who actually need to use superior challenge administration options and have full management over your challenge portfolio, you must strive ProjectManager.

Associated Content material

ProjectManager is award-winning challenge administration resolution that helps you in all features of challenge administration. On-line planning instruments and web-based job administration options allow you to collaborate on the go and make changes. Then, create complete reviews from the information with only some clicks. Try it for yourself by taking this free 30-day trial today.