Phases of Project Life Cycle - Essay Example

The main goal of any project manager and the project team is to carry out the project work to meet the pre-determined objectives. Every project constitutes a beginning, intermediate period and end. A standard project characteristically has four major stages that include: initiation, planning, implementation, and closure (Cobb, 2012). Each of these stages serves to accomplish a unique agenda of tasks and together, these stages are referred to as the project life cycle.

Initiation Phase. As the first stage of the entire process, this phase provides the project objectives that may be a business problem or opportunity. During this stage, a suitable response to the problem is documented in a business case alongside recommendations that detail solution alternatives. A feasibility study comes in handy to examine if each alternative addresses the objectives of the project before making the final recommendation. In the feasibility the team asks the question “Can we do the project?”And in justification the question “should we do the project?” is asked.

Immediately following the approval of the recommendation, the project is initiated by first appointing the project manager. In addition, the deliverables and the project team are identified.

Planning Phase. Planning is the next stage that serves to further develop the project solution. Here, the team makes a detailed study of the work as it identifies the project steps and resource requirements and at the same time comes up with a working strategy to help meet the set goals. To accomplish this, the team comes up with an outline of the tasks, activities, dependencies and timeframes. It is at this point that the project manager develops the project budget to help control and monitor expenditures during the implementation stage. Together all this is referred to as scope management. The other important consideration is risk management, an aspect that looks into matters that pose possible threats to the whole process. Here, “high-threat” potential problems are established along with the measures that are to be taken (Kanda, 2011). Finally, the project manager documents a quality plan; detailing quality targets, control measures, and assurance alongside an acceptance plan.

Implementation (execution) Phase. During this third stage, the project plan is set in motion to carry out the task of the project as the team monitors the progress and makes necessary adjustments, which are also recorded as variations from the original plan. In addition, this stage involves reporting on progress through regular team meetings. The information gathered here helps to maintain control over the path taken by the project through analysis of activities performance when comparing the output to the project plan.

Status reports delivered in this stage should always give weight to the anticipated endpoint about deliverables quality, schedule, and cost. Each project deliverable established should be assessed for quality and evaluated against the predetermined criteria. In a case where the deliverables produced meet the customer's needs, the project can now get into the closure stage.

Closing phase. This stage is also called the completion phase and it involves: handing over the final deliverables to the client, the release of the project documentation to the business, concluding suppliers' contract, handing over project materials and communicating the closing of the project to relevant persons. The very last step involves a move to carry out lesson-learned studies that will help establish what went as planned and what did not as measured to enrich future project teams.