Any project, irrespective of its scale, requires proper planning, execution, and evaluation. And it is the responsibility of a project manager to oversee all of these crucial phases of project management. But precisely what are these phases of project management?
These are the five primary phases in the project management process:
- Project Initiation
- Project Planning
- Project Execution
- Project Monitoring & Controlling
- Project Closing
And now, we will explore these in detail.
Project Initiation
Project initiation is the first step to take when turning a conceptual idea into a practical and significant goal. In this phase, you develop an initial blueprint and define your project by asking fundamental questions like How? What? When? and then present it on a broad level.
This broad-level representation of the project is called a project charter. It is a document that answers the fundamental question about the project and contains details like the project's goal, the project's appointed manager, budget, the progress and delivery timeline, and other crucial but fundamental things.
Once you have jotted down these details, it is time to recognize and name the key figures involved in the project. The roles, designation, communication points, requirements, and authorities' influence and accountability are critical things that should be part of the project charter. Initiation phase documentation should not speak about the process involved in the planning stage.
Project Planning
The project drawing board requires absolute attention because it lays out the project's roadmap. Unless you're employing a modern project management methodology like agile project management, the second phase of project management is predicted to require almost half the whole project's timespan. During this phase, the first tasks are identifying technical requirements, developing an in-depth project schedule, creating a communication plan, and fixing goals/deliverables. There are several methods of fixing the project's goals, but S.M.A.R.T. and C.L.E.A.R. are the leading methods.
S.M.A.R.T Goals
The 'SMART' criteria make sure that the goals you set for your project are critically analyzed. It's a tried and tested method that reduces risk and allows managers to establish clearly outlined and attainable goals. The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
C.L.E.A.R. Goals
The 'CLEAR' method of fixing goals is meant to cater to the dynamic nature of a contemporary workplace. Contemporary fast-paced businesses demand flexibility and immediate results, and 'CLEAR' can assist you with that. The acronym for CLEAR stands for Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Approachable, and Refinable.
The scope of a project is defined during the planning and design phase. There's a likelihood of adjusting the project's scope, but the project manager must approve the change. Project managers also produce a Work breakdown structure (WBS), which envisions the whole project in several sections for team management. An in-depth project timeline with each deliverable is another vital element of the design stage. Project managers can develop a plan and schedule communication with the associated critical figures based on the project development timeline.
Risk mitigation is another vital feature of Project Management's planning stage. The project manager is liable for extrapolating past data to spot potential risks and develop a technique to attenuate them. A crucial element that professionals often overlook is an efficient change management plan. As a project manager, you wish to be flexible enough to incorporate a couple of changes within the project to avoid delays and bottling of progress.
The void made by the absence of dynamic working change management leads to scope creep and enormous problems for the project team within the later stages of the project. So, it is best to scale back the likelihood of unexpected changes as much as possible.
Project execution
This is the stage where you see your plans in action and see your team running different tasks. As a project manager, you should establish effective workflows and diligently monitor the development of the project and the progress of your team. Another essential component of project execution is maintaining working and efficient communication between the project's different stakeholders. This makes sure that everyone involved in the project is on the same page and the project's progress is continued without any errors. Collaboration software makes it easier to manage all these tasks and resultantly increases the productivity of teams.
Project monitoring and controlling
The third and the fourth steps in Project management are not consecutive. They instead go hand-in-hand when execution begins, ensuring that objectives and deliverables are met. As a project manager, you have to ensure that nobody deviates from the initial plan. And this is done by setting Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Critical Success Factors (CSF). In the monitoring phase of project management, the manager is additionally liable for quantitatively tracking the workforce and cost of the process. This helps in maintaining the project's budget and is also vital for future projects.
Project closing
This is the terminal phase of the project management process. The project closure stage indicates the end of the project after the concluding delivery. There are times when external talent is hired specifically for the project on contract. Terminating these contracts and completing the required paperwork is additionally the responsibility of the project manager. Most teams hold self-contemplate meetings after completing the project to contemplate their successes and failures during the project. This is often an efficient method to make sure continuous improvement in the company to improve the team's overall productivity in the future. The last task of this phase is to evaluate the entire project and prepare a comprehensive report that covers every aspect.
So these are the five stages in which you can break down any project, take care of individual stages, and see the project to completion. For more such informative articles, read from our News & Articles section.
