The project manager
and project team have one shared goal: to carry out the work of the project for
the purpose of meeting the project’s objectives. Every project has a beginning,
a middle period during which activities move the project toward completion, and
an ending (either successful or unsuccessful). A standard project typically has
the following four major phases (each with its own agenda of tasks and issues):
initiation, planning, implementation, and closure. Taken together, these phases
represent the path a project takes from the beginning to its end and are
generally referred to as the project “life cycle.”
Initiation Phase
During the first of
these phases, the initiation phase, the project objective or need is
identified; this can be a business problem or opportunity. An appropriate
response to the need is documented in a business case with recommended solution
options. A feasibility study is conducted to investigate whether each option
addresses the project objective and a final recommended solution is determined.
Issues of feasibility (“can we do the project?”) and justification (“should we
do the project?”) are addressed.
Once the recommended
solution is approved, a project is initiated to deliver the approved solution
and a project manager is appointed. The major deliverables and the
participating work groups are identified, and the project team begins to take
shape. Approval is then sought by the project manager to move onto the detailed
planning phase.
Planning Phase
The next phase, the
planning phase, is where the project solution is further developed in as much
detail as possible and the steps necessary to meet the project’s objective are
planned. In this step, the team identifies all of the work to be done. The
project’s tasks and resource requirements are identified, along with the
strategy for producing them. This is also referred to as “scope management.” A
project plan is created outlining the activities, tasks, dependencies, and
timeframes. The project manager coordinates the preparation of a project budget
by providing cost estimates for the labour, equipment, and materials costs. The
budget is used to monitor and control cost expenditures during project
implementation.
Once the project team
has identified the work, prepared the schedule, and estimated the costs, the
three fundamental components of the planning process are complete. This is an
excellent time to identify and try to deal with anything that might pose a
threat to the successful completion of the project. This is called risk
management. In risk management, “high-threat” potential problems are identified
along with the action that is to be taken on each high-threat potential
problem, either to reduce the probability that the problem will occur or to
reduce the impact on the project if it does occur. This is also a good time to
identify all project stakeholders and establish a communication plan describing
the information needed and the delivery method to be used to keep the
stakeholders informed.
Finally, you will
want to document a quality plan, providing quality targets, assurance, and
control measures, along with an acceptance plan, listing the criteria to be met
to gain customer acceptance. At this point, the project would have been planned
in detail and is ready to be executed.
Implementation
(Execution) Phase
During the third
phase, the implementation phase, the project plan is put into motion and the
work of the project is performed. It is important to maintain control and
communicate as needed during implementation. Progress is continuously monitored
and appropriate adjustments are made and recorded as variances from the
original plan. In any project, a project manager spends most of the time in
this step. During project implementation, people are carrying out the tasks,
and progress information is being reported through regular team meetings. The project
manager uses this information to maintain control over the direction of the
project by comparing the progress reports with the project plan to
measure the performance of the project activities and take corrective
action as needed. The first course of action should always be to bring the
project back on course (i.e., to return it to the original plan). If that
cannot happen, the team should record variations from the original plan and
record and publish modifications to the plan. Throughout this step, project
sponsors and other key stakeholders should be kept informed of the project’s
status according to the agreed-on frequency and format of communication. The
plan should be updated and published on a regular basis.
Status reports should
always emphasize the anticipated end point in terms of cost, schedule, and
quality of deliverables. Each project deliverable produced should be reviewed
for quality and measured against the acceptance criteria. Once all of the
deliverables have been produced and the customer has accepted the final
solution, the project is ready for closure.
Closing Phase
During the final
closure, or completion phase, the emphasis is on releasing the final
deliverables to the customer, handing over project documentation to the
business, terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources, and
communicating the closure of the project to all stakeholders. The last
remaining step is to conduct lessons-learned studies to examine what went well
and what didn’t. Through this type of analysis, the wisdom of experience is
transferred back to the project organization, which will help future project
teams.
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