What Is The Project Life Cycle & Why It's Still Important

The project lifecycle guides the project manager and the team to think about how to move the project from initiation to closure. In today's video, I am going to cover what is the project lifecycle, what are the 5 stages, and why it is important. The project lifecycle is the order of processes and phases used in delivering project. It describes the high-level process of delivering a project And the steps you need to take in order to make things happen. It's how projects happen, how the phases of the project are conducted in order to go from initiation to delivery. Every project has a start and an end. According to PMI, the 5 process groups are project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, controlling, and lastly, closing. The PMI takes what makes common sense and called it the project lifecycle. The PMI methodology is the de facto standard for project delivery, and you can find more information about this in the PMBOK or the Project Management Book of Knowledge. Right now we are on the 7th edition. So now let's dive more into the 5 stages of the project lifecycle. Okay, let's start off with project initiation. So this is where you're defining what needs to be done. Initiating is the first phase of the project lifecycle. You are kicking off the project with your team and with your client. You're making sure that you're getting everyone's commitment to start the project. You bring together all of the available resources, you define the scope of the project, you also look at the goals of the project. What do you want to achieve and why do you need to start this project? Is it a regulatory requirement or is it to increase sales? Is it to gain market share? You have to have a good understanding in the initiation stage of why this project is needed in the first place. The goal of the initiation phase is to take a loose brief of the project and to understand what the project needs to do in order to achieve success. You may also need to identify the key stakeholders and make sure that they are on board with your project goals. You want to make sure that everyone understands the objective of your project and they're on board with what you're doing. However, this may not always be possible. Oftentimes you may have negative stakeholders on your project who are there to see your project fail, unfortunately, and you have to manage these stakeholders carefully throughout. Okay, now let's take a look at the steps you need to take during project initiation. You want to create a project charter. So the project charter will lay out the vision, objectives, and goals of the project. You also want to define the high-level scope and deliverables. What product or service is your project going to create? You may also want to conduct a feasibility study to see what the primary problem is and what are the probable solutions. You should also include the high-level budget and timeline in your project charter as well. Once all of this is done, then you're ready to move on to the project planning phase. This phase is about defining how to do the work that you have laid out in the initiation phase. You're going to take the high-level scope that you have just identified and break that down into more details. This is arguably the most important phase. You are creating a roadmap on how to complete the work that you have just identified in the initiation stage. So the initiation stage is all about the why, and the planning stage is all about the how. What exactly are you going to do? How are you going to do it? When are you gonna do it? Who is going to do it? And how do we know when things are done? At this stage, you want to create a detailed project management plan, which includes all aspects of the project, including cost, quality, resources, schedule, et cetera. Now, once all of this is done, then you are ready to move on to the 3rd phase of the project, which is project execution. This is where you make things happen. This is where you are actually implementing the plan that you have created in the planning phase. This is the part where you actually bring things to life. You bring resources on board. You tell them what this project is about and what you expect them to do. You set the ground rules with your team and you introduce the team to one another. After that, everyone just jumps in and starts tackling the plan. Your job as a project manager is to be aware of what everyone is up to, make sure that they understand their roles and responsibilities, and they are working towards completing the project deliverables. If there are changes that need to be made, then you may need to go back and modify your plans. It's actually very rare that you get your project management plan correct on the first try. Some key project management steps during project execution could include team leadership, making sure that the team has a vision and there is the right leadership, AKA you, in place to make sure that the vision is being delivered with success. You may also need to create tasks and define clearly what the team members need to do. You also need to manage your stakeholders. Or clients to let them know what has already been done and what work still needs to be done. Remember that 80 to 90% of your job as a project manager is just communications. You're communicating with your team, you're communicating with your sponsor, you're communicating with your clients. Now let's move on to stage number 4, which is project monitoring and controlling phase. This phase is all about keeping a project on track. This is one of the toughest areas of project management. It involves reporting on performance and monitoring and controlling the project. So what this means is that you are ensuring the project is going according to the plan, and if it isn't, you want to take the necessary measures to bring the project back on track, controlling it and working out a solution. So as a project manager, you will need to be constantly monitoring and controlling your project. You want to identify risk as early as possible and make sure that these risks don't derail your project. If issues do happen, you have to manage them accordingly. When you're setting out your budget in the planning stage, it's always a good idea to set aside a contingency reserve for things that don't go according to plan. Good project managers also know their KPIs and know what data they always need to abstract from the project. You always want to have a snapshot of your project. You want to know whether you are ahead of schedule, behind schedule, over budget, or under budget. You want to know how realistic is it for you to hit the project objectives on time and on budget. So some key project management steps for project monitoring and controlling could include cost and time management. Quality management. So it's not just about completing the deliverables on time and budget. You want to review the deliverables and make sure that they meet the quality standards set out as well. You want to manage and control any risk on your project and any changes that may arise. You've moved through 4 stages of project management already. Now let's move on to our last one, which is project closure. This is when you end a project. When a project ends, you don't just go off and party, although that would've been great, but there are specific steps you need to do to close a project. So this is a stage where you let everyone know that the deliverables have been accomplished and they can now exit the project and look for new opportunities. This is where your team adjourns. Some key tasks that you do during project closure could include analyzing your project performance. This is where you do a lessons learned with your team, and you can file this lessons learned with your organization so that future projects can learn from your mistakes. You can also do a feedback session with all of your team members, letting them know what they did well on the project and how they can improve on their future project. 360-degree feedback is really popular these days where every, um, employee gets feedback from people in the same position that they are, people below their rank in the organization, as well as from managers and people above their rank. When the project is closed, you also want to notify any contractors or vendors, close out any bills, make sure everyone has been paid, and give the formal notice to the PMO or the client that the project has officially ended. It's really important that you don't skip this phase. Now, before we wrap up today's video, let's talk about why is the project lifecycle important? While the project lifecycle might not sound that interesting, and you may have seen it many times before, it is important because it is what we do as project managers to lead and to facilitate. This is the backbone in which all project management is based on. The steps involved in any project are generally the same. You want to define the objectives in initiation, then you create the project plan to meet those objectives, then you do stuff to make it happen. This is executing, and then you move into monitoring, controlling to make sure that what you plan to do is what you are actually doing, and when everything is done, you move into closure. Different project managers or agencies may use slightly different terminologies to describe the project lifecycle. But it's pretty much the same. A project has to start somewhere. It has a beginning and it has an end. There's a problem that needs to be solved, and starting this project will be the solution to fixing this problem. So the project lifecycle provides project managers with a pathway throughout project. It defines where to start, what the next stage is, and how to get things done. The way to manage a lifecycle may look different from one company to another. Even so, the underlying concepts will remain the same. Thank you so much for joining me for today's video. Please make sure you like and subscribe if you liked this. I will see you soon in my next video. Have a great day.