The Typical Phases in Project Management

Learn how to manage a project from start to finish, through all of the typical project phases. This includes initiation, planning, execution and closure as a Project Manager. See how our software can help at https://www.projectmanager.com/?utm_s...

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Closed Caption:

yeah
hi i'm devin deen content director here
at projectmanager.com
hi thank you for joining us for today's
whiteboard session today's topic is
around typical project phases
now there are four basic phases in every
project and every phase of every project
those are initiation planning execution
and closing I'd like to go over these in
a little bit of detail show you the
relationship and maybe give you a sense
of the level of activity that we can
expect in each of these phases of the
project or the sub faces of each of the
projects
so first off his initiation when you're
starting a project off
even before you assemble the team you've
got to get the business case together in
the feasibility study
you're talking to the board or the
stakeholders to try and convince them
that this actual project is going to
have sufficient return on investment to
invest in the the dollars as well as the
mind share and the human capital to
execute that project
you're gathering the forces and getting
the ideas together and basically
starting at the very early days around a
project budget type of skills you need
on the project and once again that
return on investment of what the project
is going to do for the business the next
phase that we actually go into is the
planning phases
now after the board or the stakeholders
approve your business case and an award
your level of funding you then go into a
little bit more detailed planning in the
planning phase you're doing things like
your typical schedule your resource plan
a more firm budget and a cash flow plan
for that project as well as looking at
the type of skills that you're going to
need on that project team and starting
to go and interview the people on that
team
now once you've got your project
schedule once you've got your statement
of work your terms of reference and
you've got your project team assembled
then you're ready to start and you're
ready to execute in that project in the
execution phase you're doing a lot of
the activities of project and as a
project manager you're actually
implementing quite a lot of the
controlling processes
you're doing risk management issues
management change control management
communications management additional
planning and integration management with
all the different stakeholders and all
the different systems of that project
this is really where the meat of the
project is an activities occur after you
finish your executing phase do then go
into the closing face your neck
space in the closing faith you then sort
of packaging up those deliverables for
that particular phase you are starting
to cancel the sub your vendors sub
contracts and you're also trying to get
acceptance of the deliverables of that
particular phase now I'd like to show a
little bit more on the relationships
that these phases have with one another
here I've gone through and it just sort
of plotted a couple of different sub
faces on a project so a design phase in
an implementation phase now each of
these phases you have these separate
project typical typical project phases
within the subphase so for the design
phase you have also initiating phase in
the initiation of a design
you might do things like give a high
level specification or high level design
document in the planning stages you
might talk about your architecture and
how you're going to get your system
together in the execution of the design
phase you're actually putting all those
ideas and and concepts together in a
document design document perhaps a
functional specification or detailed
design spec whilst you're writing that
documentation and getting the architects
together you'd be controlling the
activities of that so making sure that
you're delivering that documentation on
time monitoring the progress and
inspecting it as it's being developed so
that you're ensuring to get a quality
product and lastly at the end of that
design phase
you're then going through the activities
to close it off so you're getting the
acceptance of the design acceptance of
the functional spec and buying of the
technical people and the project team
that they can actually execute on that
on that design the next phase then after
you just agreed and signed off that
design specification is that into the
implementation phase once again in the
implementation phase you go through
these sub phases to complete the
deliverables for that phase so you'll go
through the initiating activities you
might bring the project team together
and have that kickoff meeting and in the
planning phases after the kickoff you
then going through the itemized task
list and getting them to buy it on each
of the tasks starting to own up the
accountability of the effort and the
deliverables to achieve that tasks in
the execution phase the team is actually
doing the work watched you as a project
manager controlling phase are monitoring
their progress and adjusting accordingly
and lastly once the deliverables are
achieved acceptance testing has occurred
your packaging and handing over the
project to the operations
you might have another phase after this
called change management for example if
you're delivering a erp system for
example you might have a change
management phase where you're going to
the people and process change as well
what I'm trying to communicate is that
in each of these phases of a project
you also have these sub phases where you
might go through a series of steps and
processes to achieve that particular
phase and objective now just to shed a
little bit more light on the activity
you can expect in each of these faces
I've got a little graph here plotted
time against the level of activity face
start on the left phase end on the right
when you're going through the initiating
activities you would typically expect to
see a ramp up of your personal activity
as well as perhaps one or two other
members of the project team
it will look at something a little bit
like this with a bit of a peek and then
trail off over time during that
initiation activity that's when you're
doing the feasibility study putting the
business case together making the
numbers and the ROI speak for themselves
and doing presentations on those
particular artifacts to get the project
started shortly after initiation perhaps
a little bit in parallel you're also
going through some planning activities
so you're perhaps getting the project
schedule together getting your resources
and assigned and seeing how that looks
over time so there's a bit of activity
in that phase as well and that sort of
Peters off similar to the way the
initiation phase Peters off
the next phase and probably the biggest
phase where you got the lion's share of
the work is execution and that might
start once again slightly in parallel to
planning initiation
perhaps just before you close out this
particular faces you see a level of
activity where you're ramping up your
project team
you're doing all the tasks you're doing
and then completing your deliverables
and finally you're finishing off those
tasks and lastly the last phase in the
closing
well before those deliverables are
finally signed off you've got to create
those acceptance criteria
you've got to get buy-in from the users
and what they expect to see and you
showing them the artifacts all the way
through the project and getting
incremental sign off on each of the
deliverables
so that at the end of the project you're
not left with the stack of deliverables
a sign off which caused that closing
face actually push out and could
potentially hurt your budget
so once again that's the last phase the
closing phase in today's whiteboard
session
I went over the typical project phases
each of these phases once again could be
up a small component of individual
phases of a larger project for example
the designer implementation phase have
also shown you the level activity to
expect during these phases so that you
can better prepare for your time and the
time of your project teams for other
how-to tips and techniques and all your
other project management needs
please come join us at project manager
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