Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Project Management Life Cycle has four phases: Initiation, Planning, Execution and Closure.
Each project life cycle phase is described below, along with the tasks needed to complete it. You can
click the links provided, to view more detailed information on the project management life cycle.
Build Deliverables
Monitor and Control
Perform Time Management
Perform Cost Management
Perform Quality Management
Perform Change Management
Perform Risk Management
Perform Issue Management
Perform Procurement Management
Perform Acceptance Management
Perform Communications Management
Perform Project Closure
Review Project Completion
The project management life cycle is usually broken down into four
phases: initiation, planning, execution, and closure—these make up
the path that takes your project from the beginning to the end. Some
methodologies also include a fifth phase, controlling or monitoring.
For our purposes, this phase is covered under the execution and
closure phases.
To help you visualize the project management lifecycle, use this free
customizable template. It’s easy to edit and share with your team.
Project Management Life Cycle (Click on image to modify this template)
1. Initiation
Instead of waiting to have the project strategy decided for you, Moira
Alexander advocates for a mental switch from being a project
"manager" to becoming a project "leader":
"Project managers must be able to sell business leaders on the
intrinsic value they offer to the business at a strategic level when they
are at the table from the start of strategic planning instead of after the
fact decision-making. Project managers effectiveness is drastically
muted when offering a "fix-it" or "workaround" once high-level
directional business decisions are made without their expertise."
Clearly it's worth it to do what it takes to make your voice heard early,
before the strategy is set in stone.
Project management steps for the initiation phase
Steps for the project initiation phase may include the following:
Take a look at this example workflow diagram that you can use as a
template to plan your projects.
Steps for the project planning phase may include the following:
The planning phase is also where you bring your team on board,
usually with a project kickoff meeting. It is important to have
everything outlined and explained so that team members can quickly
get to work in the next phase.
3. Execution
Steps for the project execution phase may include the following:
Creating tasks and organizing workflows – Assigning granular
aspects of the projects to the appropriate team members,
making sure team members are not overworked
Briefing team members on tasks – Explaining tasks to team
members, providing necessary guidance on how they should be
completed, and organizing process-related training if necessary
Communicating with team members, clients, and upper
management – Providing updates to project stakeholders at all
levels
Monitoring quality of work – Ensuring that team members are
meeting their time and quality goals for tasks
Managing budget – Monitoring spending and keeping the
project on track in terms of assets and resources
4. Closure
Once your team has completed work on a project, you enter the
closure phase. In the closure phase, you provide final deliverables,
release project resources, and determine the success of the project.
Just because the major project work is over, that doesn’t mean the
project manager’s job is done—there are still important things to do,
including evaluating what did and did not work with the project.
Project management steps for the closure phase
Steps for the project closure phase may include the following:
Let's take a closer look at each phase of the project life cycle.
Project Initiation
The purpose of the Project Initiation Phase is to define and authorize the
project.
The initial definition of the project can come from several places...
Project Statement of Work (SoW)
Business Case
Contract
The project manager takes the information provided and creates a Project
Charter. The Project Charter authorizes the project and documents the
initial requirements for the project.
Project Planning
The purpose of the Project Planning Phase is to determine the approach
you will take and define all the details of how the project will be done.
During Strategic Planning you develop the overall approach to the project.
During Implementation Planning you figure out all the details of how the
project will be done.
Project Execution
The purpose of the Project Execution Phase is to carryout the activities
defined during the Project Planning Phase.
Project Execution is where most of the time, money, and people are used
on a project. This is where the action takes place.
During this phase of the project management life cycle the project manager
has to keep all the activities moving forward in a coordinated manner. This
means you will need to track the progress of each activity and adjust your
plans when the situation changes. This tracking and adjustment of project
activities is also known as Monitor and Control.
During the execution phase all of the agreed project deliverables should be
implemented and accepted by the customer. The customer can be an
internal customer or an external customer.
Project Closure
The purpose of the Project Closure Phase is to formally close the project.
During Project Closure, there are several key activities that need to be
performed...
Verify that the completion criteria are met
Create a project closure report
Collect and archive project artifacts
Perform a project postmortem
Many projects skip this phase. Once the Execution Phase is complete, they
simply move on. It's unfortunate since they really don't know if the project
objectives have been met, don't organize the project artifacts to be easily
found for future project's reference, and don't identify the key issues and
lessons learned by the project that can be applied to future projects.
Performing Project Closure will benefit both your company and your career.
If you do this well, you will set yourself up to lead high-visibility, business-
critical projects. So make sure your projects go through the full project
management life cycle.
PLIMCO
The company’s primary focus is to support customers to efficiently execute and manage the lifecycle
management phases to maximise the project outcome in line with the Compliance & Regulatory
requirements. Our primary aim is to support customers to achieve the positive outcome on the
project by our active mentoring, support & participation with the project teams at the key stages of
the project to achieve the following: - Project executed meeting all compliance and regulatory
requirements - The ability for the customer to retain the long-term benefit on the project though
achieving the optimised sustainable outcome (production capacities) The engagement model can be
provided as an end to end lifecycle management support commencing from Requirements phase
until completion of Qualification phase. We can also provide consultancy based on specific or
selected consultancy services based on a specific requirement of the customer. A High-level list of
services offered by Plimco are: 1. Lifecycle management / C&Q strategy development 2. Lifecycle
management / C&Q governance & project management 3. Lifecycle management / C&Q execution
Having experience from involvement in multiple projects across the globe and putting ourselves in
the shoes of the customer, we understand the standard customer pain points and empathise with
customer expectations. We also provide specific tailor-made support for a particular customer based
on their specific requirements. (not all services require full-time engagement from us) Contact us for
your needs and we will not disappoint you.