·        Plan : The planning and forecasting activities.

·        Process:  The overall approach to all activities and project governance.

·        People:  Including dynamics of how they collaborate and communicate.

·        Power:  Lines of authority, decision-makers, organ grams, policies for implementation and the like.

There are a number of approaches to organizing and completing project activities, including: phased, lean, iterative, and incremental. There are also several extensions to project planning, for example based on outcomes (product-based) or activities (process-based).

What is Project Life Cycle?

Project management life cycle is the term used to describe the series of phases a project passes through from its start to its completion. It establishes the basic framework that can be applied towards any kind of project from software development to construction to event planning.

The 5 Phases of Project Management

There are 5 main project management life cycle phases that we will discuss in the course of this post:

1. Initiate
2. Definition & Planning
3. Execution
4. Monitor & Control
5. Project Close

Each phase assumes a number of specific project management steps you will have to take to receive the required output that we will further cover in this post.

This is the ground zero of any project. Your main goal here is to conceive the project at a broad level:

• Build a strong case for it (Why are we doing this and what are the benefits?)
• Feasibility study/analysis (Can we do it? How much time and resources will it require?
• Identify key stakeholders.
• Develop a project charter.

Let us dwell further on the last point. A project charter is a document that offers a formal initiation definition of the project and authorized the project manager to use the company^'s organizational resources for project activities.

A project management plan defines how a project will be executed, monitored, controlled and closed basically, covering all the consequent stages of a project. Depending on your needs, your project management plan can be either summary level or highly detailed. Remember, your plan should also account for the likely changes in the project environment e.g. when new information becomes available, or if any requirements change.

Here are the key documents you will need to develop:

Project scope management plan  documenting all the deliverables of the project; scope definition, validation and control. It should present a detailed list of requirements for the project and a bird-eye view of what should be delivered and when.

Requirements management plan  indicates how the requirements activities will be planned, tracked and reported. It includes all the respective project management process steps you will have to take to initiate changes, prioritize different requirements, track and report them.

At this point, the actual work on the project begins. All those requirements, resources and tools outlined in the plan are leveraged to meet the project goals. The tasks you are expected to complete at this stage are as follows:

• Assemble a team
• Assign resources
• Start executing the project management plan
• Proactive control and manage project execution
• Identify KPIs and set-up tracking systems.
• Distribute and assign tasks.
• Schedule status meetings
• Update project schedule
• Modify project plans as needed.

At this point, you will want to adopt one of the project management tools to help you proactively manage and review all the scheduled activities. To ensure that your project remains on track at all times, you will want to establish key performance indicators (KPIs). Most managers tend to settle for 3-5 metrics that clearly indicate the project overall health in regards to performance, budgets, timelines and objectives.

Specifically, you may want to engage in:

• Cost tracking:  review and refine project costs to reflect additional details as those become available.
• Quality management:  make sure that organizational quality policies are incorporated into the project. All the deliverables are produced according to the predefined specs.
• Overall project performance monitoring: monitor and respond to changes in the project. Assess the team effectiveness, proactively identify and prevent project bottlenecks and ensure that all the project cogs are moving without any friction. This also includes sharing project status reports with key stakeholders upon reached milestones.
• And we have made it to the final phase project completion. All the objectives are met; all the tasks are completed; the final deliverables are reviewed and sign-off by the customer.
• Apart from congratulating everyone on good work, professional PMs will often schedule a closing meeting the so-called project post-mortem to draw the final line. Such meetings are held to discuss the overall project performance, identify key failures and successes and apply those insights towards future projects.
•  And then we are back to square one a new project initiated by the company that will pass through the very same 5 stages of the project management life cycle.