Project Phases and Project Life Cycles

All projects are divided into phases, and all projects, large or small, have a similar life cycle structure. At a minimum, a project will have a beginning or initiation phase, an intermediate phase or phases, and an ending phase. The number of phases depends on the project complexity and the industry. For example, information technology projects might progress through phases such as requirements, design, program, test, and implement. All the collective phases the project progresses through in concert are called the project life cycle.

The end of each phase allows the project manager, stakeholders, and project sponsor the opportunity to determine whether the project should continue to the next phase. In order to progress to the next phase, the deliverable from the phase before it must be reviewed for accuracy and approved. As each phase is completed, it’s handed off to the next phase. You’ll look at handoffs and progressions through these phases next.

Handoffs
Project phases evolve through the life cycle in a series of phase sequences called handoffs, or technical transfers. The end of one phase sequence typically marks the beginning of the next. However, the completion of one phase does not automatically signal the beginning of the next phase. For example, in the construction industry, feasibility studies often take place in the beginning phase of a project.

The purpose of the feasibility study is to determine whether the project is worth undertaking and whether the project will be profitable to the organization. A feasibility study is a preliminary assessment of the viability of the project; the viability or perhaps marketability of the product, service, or result of the project; and the project’s value to the organization. It might also determine whether the product, service, or result of the project is safe and meets industry or governmental standards and regulations. The completion and approval of the feasibility study triggers the beginning of the requirements phase, where requirements are documented and then handed off to the design phase, where blueprints are produced. The feasibility might also show that the project is not worth pursuing and the project is then terminated; thus, the next phase never begins.

Phase Completion
You will recognize phase completion because each phase has a specific deliverable, or multiple deliverables, that marks the end of the phase. A deliverable is an output that must be produced, reviewed, and approved to bring the phase or project to completion. Deliverables are tangible and can be measured and easily proved. For instance, a hypothetical deliverable produced in the beginning phase of a construction industry project would be the feasibility study.

Deliverables might also include things such as design documents, project budgets, blueprints, project schedules, prototypes, and so on. This analysis allows those involved with the opportunity to determine whether the project should continue to the next phase. The feasibility study might show that environmental impacts of an enormous nature would result if the construction project were undertaken at the proposed location. Based on this information, a go or no-go decision can be made at the end of this phase. The end of a phase gives the project manager the ability to discover, address, and take corrective action against errors discovered during the phase.

Sometimes phases are overlapped to shorten or compress the project schedule. This is called
fast tracking. Fast tracking means that a later phase is started prior to completing and approving the phase, or phases, that come before it. This technique is used to shorten the overall duration of the project.

Most projects follow phase sequences within a project life cycle and, as a result, have the following characteristics in common: In the beginning phase, which is where the project is initiated, costs are low, and few team members are assigned to the project. As the project progresses, costs and staffing increase and then taper off at the closing phase. The potential that the project will come to a successful ending is lowest at the beginning of the project; its chance for success increases as the project progresses through its phases and life cycle stages. Risk is highest at the beginning of the project and gradually decreases the closer the project comes to completion.

Stakeholders have the greatest chance of influencing the project and the characteristics of the product, service, or result of the project in the beginning phases and have less and less influence as the project progresses. This same phenomenon exists within the project management processes as well.

Elements of a Project Information Plan

In the IT project life cycle, outputs of one phase become the inputs to the next phase in the cycle. Since planning is the first phase conducted, where does the project team get its information to conduct the key planning activities?

The project team's information comes from the information plan. The information plan is an input to the planning phase and is obtained from the management team and the client.

The information plan provides a high-level description of the project's information systems and related business objectives. This plan is always the first document created for a project. Every information plan should contain a brief overview, as well as the following five sections.

1. Needs analysis
The needs analysis is a set of procedures undertaken to set priorities and make decisions about a product, based on the client's request. To conduct a needs analysis, the project manager (PM) interviews the client and reviews the project's schedule, resources, and budget to obtain information. During the information gathering process, the PM should follow the steps listed below.

• Identify the business need. The PM restates the project request to make sure it is clear and asks why the client wants to invest in a product. Three of the most common needs are to generate revenue, reduce expenses, or comply with regulations. The PM then asks for a tangible goal that will result from satisfying the need.
• Identify the gap. The gap is the difference between the client's current state and the desired state of technology that the project's product will help the client to achieve. The PM must ask the client what the current state of affairs is and what the client ultimately expects from the final product.
• Identify the tasks involved. With the help of the client, the PM identifies what tasks the end users will perform when using the final product.
• Identify the user groups. The PM asks the client who the intended users of the proposed product are. The PM also needs to obtain from the client a description of any user trait that might affect how the product is developed.
• Identify any project constraints. Finally, the PM should identify any constraints. A constraint is anything that could potentially limit the success of the project.
  

If you have followed all of these steps to gather information, you should have the information you need to create the needs analysis section of the information plan for your client's project.

2. Project goals
The next section of the information plan, goals, contains two parts. First, it states the business objective and explains how the product will contribute to revenue, contain expenses, or comply with regulations. This information is obtained from the needs analysis section. The second part outlines product evaluation and explains how the customer can determine if the final product has achieved its goal.

3. Form of the product
The form of the product describes the medium you will use to deliver the product and the reason you chose that medium. You will have to choose the medium that best fits your product and that most efficiently distributes the information to the intended users. The available choices include mediums such as:

• CD-ROM software packages
• networks
• network-installed applications
• downloadable Web packages.
  

4. Product function
The next section, function of the product, briefly describes what the product will do for the company or the reason why the product was created.

5. Quality guidelines
The fifth section, quality guidelines, outlines the standards that the product must meet to be accepted by management and the client. A project usually has two types of guidelines.

• Product guidelines affect production and the product's appearance. These guidelines cover such areas as programming languages and templates to be used, grammar standards, and a viewing platform for the final product.
• Project guidelines affect time, money, and resources needed to complete the project, such as schedules or budgets.
  

Remember, the information plan is created during the project conception and is used as an input to the planning phase. It will provide the reasoning behind the design choices the project team will make. Without a complete information plan, the PM will not have the necessary information to achieve the project plan sign-off milestone that must be met to complete the planning phase and begin the analysis phase of the project.