PremierAgile

Management of a Project is not easy irrespective of the scope and scale. Right from planning  to shipping the deliverables to customers on time, many challenges can come up. It will be easy to control the entire project with quality as the focus when you divide the project into stages that are easy to manage. Also, when you do this, it will even become easier when each stage has its own deliverables and goals. If you are entrusted with the responsibility of Project Management in your organization, it is better to keep yourself aware of the 5 phases of Project Management.

PMBOK Guide:

Based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge from the Project Management Institute, a Project Management life cycle encompasses five distinct phases starting from initiation and ending with closure. All these stages work together to turn a project idea into a result that works.

Phases in Project Management:

1. Project Initiation:

In the five phases of Project Management, project initiation marks the start of the project and the development of the project charter happens. Even, at this stage stakeholders should be identified. This phase of Project Management has some key tasks to complete including defining project goals, creating a business case, completing the project charter and drawing up the list of stakeholders. 

During the Project Initiation phase, the performance of the team can result in the authorization. However, when it is not done right, it can lead to the discontinuation or delay of a new project. The objective of this phase is to make sure that the project meets the needs of the business. At this stage, the Project Management team will have to ensure that the project teams and stakeholders are properly aligned on the success criteria of the project all through its lifecycle.

For the best outcome at this stage, it is best to ensure that both internal and external stakeholders are involved. When this is done, you, as a Project Manager can effectively align the expectations and even you can increase the probability of all your project deliverables in the future.

At this stage, a stakeholder register and project charter are to be submitted. You might wonder what does a project charter mean?

A project charter is nothing but a short document that defines the project using concise and clear words that the high-level management can understand. The project charter also talks about the wholesomeness of the project in such a way that teams can quickly understand the stakeholders, timelines, tasks and goals. 

This document in a project is one of the early deliverables as stated by the Project Management Institute in its Project Management guidelines. From this document, every participant can find complete details about the project. It also provides the green signal to instigate the project. You can consider this document as a formal announcement that a new project is going to start. The project charter will also provide information about the Project Manager, who is responsible for the entire project.

In short, at the end of this first phase, all participants will be in a position to know the project goals. At this stage, they will also have a project brief.

2. Project Planning:

Of the 5 phases of Project Management, Project Planning is the second phase. At this phase, you will lay out every detail of the plan right from the beginning to the close. The plan that you create at this phase will take your team through the next phases of Project Management. At this phase of Project Management, you will have to consider the factors listed below:

• Scope of the project
• Project estimation
• General processes and workflow
• Roles and responsibilities of teams
• Deciding on key milestones of the project like meeting and review of deliverables
• Approval processes
• How you will work with the team of stakeholders to make sure that you get everything done within your budget and time.

When deciding on the project goals, it is better to ensure that the goal is SMART and CLEAR.  In other words, the goal should be timely, realistic, attainable, measurable and specific. In the same way, the project goal should be refinable, appreciable, emotional, limited and collaborative. 

3. Project Execution:

At this stage in the five phases of Project Management, your team should develop and complete deliverables. This phase of Project Management will start with a kick-off meeting. During this meeting, the project should be marked by the onset of status, updates and reports. These things should be transformed into performance and they should be watched as the project moves forward. Tasks completed at this execution phase encompass the following:

• Team development
• Assigning of resources
• Execution of Project Management plans
• Procurement management if at all required
• Management and direction of the project execution by the Project Manager
• Setting up of tracking system
• Execution of task assignments
• Status meetings
• Updating project schedule
• Modifying project planning as required

4. Project Monitoring and Controlling:

This phase in the 5 phases of Project Management is otherwise called the Project Performance and Monitoring phase. The purpose of this phase is to make sure that the project alignment happens with the management plan. At this phase of Project Management, performance managers will have to use Key Performance Indicators for identifying if the project is in line with its goals. Some of the common and effective Key Performance Indicators include:

• Project Performance:

This performance indicator keeps an eye on the changes in the project. It considers the type and amount of problems that come up and how to quickly address them. These issues can arise when changes happen in the scope and due to unexpected hindrances.

• Tracking of Cost and Effort:

This key performance indicator will account for the cost and effort of resources to view if the budget is in line. Based on the present performance, this kind of tracking will inform if a project will meet its date of completion.

• Quality Deliverables:

This key performance indicator will judge if particular task deliverables are being met.

• Project Objectives:

This performance indicator helps with evaluating whether the project is moving forward as per the schedule. It is an indication that the project will meet the objectives of the stakeholders.

5. Project Closure:

This stage denotes the closing procedures to be followed after the deliverables are completed. For some projects, some organizations hire external talents just to meet the project delivery schedules. So, after the delivery, these talents are to be relieved. Here, the Project Manager will have to take care of the necessary paperworks that indicates that they are relieved of the project. At this stage, the Project Managers get the opportunity to recommend some of these temporary hires for some other projects in the organization. At times, Project Managers identify some special talents from the pool of new hires. If they feel that they will be valuable assets for the organizational growth, the Project Manager can recommend them to meet the HR for some permanent role in the organization.

At this phase of Project Management, some teams conduct a reflection meeting. At this meeting, they will discuss what has been achieved and what was not able to be completed on time. Particularly, they will have to evaluate what went wrong and what caused delay in the completion of certain tasks. This is an effective measure to make sure of ongoing improvement within the organization to improve overall team productivity in the future projects. 

This final phase of Project Management will review the whole project and a detailed report will be prepared. This report will cover all aspects of the project. It will include all the required data. This report will be secured in such a way that the report will act as a reference for Project Managers in the future when they will have to manage similar projects.

Importance of Phases in Project Management:

Irrespective of the size and nature of a project, it will have to go through each phase in this five phase of Project Management. When you decide to officially split your project into phases, it will be an excellent technique to manage the focus of your team and it will help with effective allocation of resources as well. Above all, it will help with the alignment of the whole project lifecycle with stakeholders and clients.

These five phases are recommended by PMBOK. Nevertheless, Project Managers in any organization are at their liberty to follow their own system based on the industry of their operation. They can consider different factors including their organizational policies to phrase their own Project Management phases. But, again, the thing to remember here is that dividing any project into phases will make things manageable and easier for the organization. This division will give them time to focus on a specific phase at a time. Once one phase is completed, they can confidently move forward to the next one. Step-by-step execution will make achieving smaller goals easier.

References

1. https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-are-the-phases-of-project-management/
2. https://project-management.com/project-management-phases/
3. https://www.teamgantt.com/blog/5-crucial-project-management-phases