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The Project Life Cycle refers to a logical sequence of activities to accomplish the projects goals or objectives. Regardless of scope or complexity, any project goes through a series of stages during its life. Diverse project management tools and methodologies prevail in the
different project cycle phases. Lets take a closer look at whats important in each one of these stages:
Project Initiation
Project Initiation is the first phase in the Project Life Cycle and essentially involves starting up the project. You initiate a project by defining its purpose and scope, the justification for initiating it and the solution to be implemented. You will also need to recruit a suitably skilled project team, set up a Project Office and perform an end of Phase Review. The Project Initiation phase involves the following six key steps:
Project Planning
After defining the project and appointing the project team, you're ready to enter the detailed Project Planning phase. This involves creating a suite of planning documents to help guide the team throughout the project delivery. The Planning Phase involves completing the following 10 key steps:
Project Execution
With a clear definition of the project and a suite of detailed project plans, you are now ready to enter the Execution phase of the project. This is the phase in which the deliverables are physically built and presented to the customer for acceptance. While each deliverable is being constructed, a suite of management processes are undertaken to monitor and control the deliverables being output by the project. These processes include managing time, cost, quality, change, risks, issues, suppliers, customers and communication. Once all the deliverables have been produced and the customer has accepted the final solution, the project is ready for closure.
Project Closure
Project Closure involves releasing the final deliverables to the customer, handing over project documentation to the business, terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources and communicating project closure to all stakeholders. The last remaining step is to undertake a Post Implementation Review to identify the level of project success and note any lessons learned for future projects.
Project management
is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavour with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations),which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies.
WHAT IS A PROJECT?
The World Bank lends money to low and middle-income countries to support development and change. Development projects are implemented by borrowing countries following certain rules and procedures to guarantee that the money reaches its intended target.
2. Identification
Ideas for creating meaningful change are discussed. Borrower and Bank representatives weigh development objectives and project impacts, risks, alternatives and timetable
6. Evaluation
After a Borrower completes a project, the Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) measures the outcomes against original objectives and assesses whether or not the projects results can be maintained over the long term. A number of projects are further scrutinized in detailed impact evaluation report
PROJECT APPRAISAL
Appraisal gives stakeholders an opportunity to review the project design in detail and resolve any outstanding questions. The government and the World Bank review the work done during the identification and preparation phases and confirm the expected project outcomes, intended beneficiaries and evaluation tools for monitoring progress.
Agreement is reached on the viability of all aspects of the project at this time. The Bank team confirms that all aspects of the project are consistent with all World Bank operations requirements and that the government has institutional arrangements in place to implement the project efficiently. All parties agree on a project timetable and on public disclosure of key documents and identify any unfinished business required for final Bank approval. The final steps are assessment of the project's readiness for implementation and agreement on conditions for effectiveness (agreed upon actions prior to implementation). The Project Information Document is updated and released when the project is approved for funding.
PROJECT APPROVAL
Once all project details are negotiated and accepted by the government and the World Bank, the project team prepares the Project Appraisal Document (for investment lending) or the Program Document (for development policy lending), along with other financial and legal documents, for submission to the Bank's Board of Executive Directors for consideration and approval. When funding approval is obtained, conditions for effectiveness are met, and the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
The borrower government implements the development project with funds from the World Bank. With technical assistance and support from the Bank's team, the implementing government agency prepares the specifications for the project and carries out all procurement of goods, works and services needed, as well as any environmental and social impact mitigation set out in agreed upon plans. Financial management and procurement specialists on the Bank's project team ensure that adequate fiduciary controls on the use of project funds are in place. All components at this phase are ready, but project delays and unexpected events can sometimes prompt the restructuring of project objectives. Once underway, the implementing government agency reports regularly on project activities. The government and the Bank also join forces and prepare a mid-term review of project progress. In addition, the World Bank's Report on the Status of Projects in Execution, a brief summary of all Bank-funded projects active at the end of each fiscal year, is available to the public. As projects close during the fiscal year, they are removed from this report, since their individual Implementation Completion and Results Reports are publicly disclosed at that time. The project's progress, outcomes and impact on beneficiaries are monitored by the government and the Bank throughout the implementation phase to obtain data to evaluate and measure the ultimate effectiveness of the operation and the project in terms of results.
PROJECT COMPLETION
When a project is completed and closed at the end of the loan disbursement period, a process that can take anywhere from 1-10 years, the World Bank and the borrower government document the results achieved; the problems encountered; the lessons learned; and the knowledge gained from carrying out the project. A World Bank operations team compiles this information and data in an Implementation Completion and Results Report, using input from the implementing government agency, cofinanciers, and other partners/stakeholders. The report describes and evaluates final project outcomes. The final outcomes are then compared to expected results. The information gained during this exercise is also often used to determine what additional government measures and capacity improvements are needed to sustain the benefits derived from the project. In addition, the evaluation team assesses how well the entire operation complied with the Bank's operations policies and accounts for the use of Bank
resources. The knowledge gained from this results measurement process is intended to benefit similar projects in the future.
EVALUATION
The Bank's Independent Evaluation Group assesses the performance of roughly one project out of four (about 70 projects a year), measuring outcomes against the original objectives, sustainability of results and institutional development impact. From time to time, IEG also produces Impact Evaluation Reports to assess the economic worth of projects and the long-term effects on people and the environment against an explicit counter-factual.