MENG442 Lecture 2

MENG442
Construction
Administration
Lecture 2
ENGR . IRISH M. POLINGA, MSCE
DE L A S ALLE UNIVERSITY - DASMARIÑAS
PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
To an outsider, it might seem like the project management process is easy…just talking to clients,
scheduling meetings, assigning tasks, and reminding team members of deadlines.
But anyone who has managed a project will tell you it’s much more than that, which is why the
project life cycle is so useful.
What is a Project Life Cycle?

The project life cycle is a 4-step framework designed to help project managers guide their
projects successfully from start to finish. The purpose of the project life cycle is to create an easy
to follow framework to guide projects.
PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
The 4 stages of the project life cycle:
The project initiation stage: understand the goals, priorities,
deadlines, and risks of the project
The project planning stage: outline the tasks and timeline required
to execute on the project
The project execution stage: turn your plan into action and monitor
project performance
The project closure stage: analyze results, summarize key learnings,
and plan next steps
PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
Understanding and planning for the 4 stages of the project life cycle can help you manage,
organize, and plan so your project will go off without a hitch.
A project management life cycle will help:
Ease communication between project teams and stakeholders
Ensure goals are achievable with the available resources
Help mitigate risk and keep projects on track
PROJECT INITIATION STAGE
The initiation stage of the project management life cycle is when you meet with clients and
stakeholders to understand their goals, motivations, and hopes for the project.
During this stage the aim is to hash out the high-level goals that must be met for you to consider
the project a success. There’s lots of research, discovery, and discussion, but very little detailed
planning in this phase.
The key project management steps for the initiation stage include:
Identifying project objectives and deliverables
Outlining project risks, dependencies, constraints, and priorities
Establishing project scope based on deadlines and available resources
Submitting a project proposal for approval (our proposal maker can help you with that)
Kick off the project management process by identifying project objectives and
deliverables
Start by talking with your stakeholders or clients to get to know their needs. Try to tease out
what’s important to them, what projects they’ve tried in the past, and what they hope to see in
the future.
From there, you can move on to building out the concrete objectives and deliverables that your
team will be responsible for, given the scope of the project and the available resources.
Be sure to document the takeaways from these initial meetings. You’ll want to have a record of
the agreed-upon deliverables when it comes to the project closure stage.
Outline project risks, dependencies, constraints, and priorities
Once you’ve mapped out the high-level project goals, it’s time to explore all of the variables that might
impact the progress of the project, including:
Risks: Factors that can negatively impact the cost, goals, timeline, or results of a project
Dependencies: Relationships between activities or tasks
Constraints: Limiting factors like technology, resources, time, and cost
By identifying all of these variables early on you can nip a lot of potential problems in the bud, before they
throw off your whole project timeline.
A risk breakdown structure can aid in identifying and assessing all of the risks in your project.
A risk breakdown structure is a hierarchical representation of risks, starting with the high-level risks and
then breaking it down into more granular risks. It can be an essential tool for project risk management.
RISK BREAKDOWN
STRUCTURE
Establish project scope based on deadlines and available resources
With a handle on all of the variables at play, you can start breaking the project down into more
actionable steps. Set boundaries on project scope based on your deadlines and the resources at
your disposal, and think about what skill set your future team will need.
Mind maps and flowcharts can be helpful for organizing all of the moving parts to map out
what’s reasonable based on project constraints.
Summarize the takeaways of the project initiation stage in a project
proposal
All of the details that you establish during the initiation stage should be outlined in a project
proposal, the only major deliverable for this initiation stage.
A project proposal is a report that details all of the goals, scope, requirements, budget,
participants, and deadlines of a project.
PROJECT PLANNING STAGE
Once your project proposal has been approved, it’s time to move on to the project planning
stage of the project life cycle.
The project planning stage is when you create a comprehensive project plan, which involves:
Translating your proposal into a series of actionable tasks and scheduling them in a project
roadmap
Documenting processes or workflows that your team will use (you could try using a process
infographic for this)
Creating measurable short-term goals from high-level project goals
Addressing potential issues that could derail your roadmap
PROJECT PLANNING STAGE
Create a project roadmap with project tasks and milestones
Creating a project roadmap is one of the more important project management life cycle steps,
crucial for organizing your team and keeping work on track. A project roadmap outlines all of
the start and end dates of every major project task (plus any big milestones you’re working
towards).
Gantt charts are a great tool for project road mapping, because they can show the duration and
timing of a number of dependent tasks. They’re perfect for planning and scheduling, and
eventually monitoring progress throughout the execution stage of the project life cycle.
PROJECT EXECUTION STAGE
The project execution stage is the true start of the project, when you carry out all of the tasks
and activities you mapped out in the planning stage.
This is where the majority of the project work takes place, and it requires constant monitoring.
Expect to adjust your goals and roadmap as you get deeper into the project.
As a project manager, your main responsibilities of the project execution stage
are to:
◦ Monitor and control the execution process, reviewing the quality of the team’s output
◦ Adjust and update tasks, goals, and deadlines to meet changing conditions
◦ Communicate between your team and the project stakeholders
PROJECT EXECUTION STAGE
Create status reports to communicate execution progress
throughout the project management process
Although most of your time during the execution stage of the project
management process will be spent monitoring and adjusting to keep the project
on track, you’ll also need to keep stakeholders up to date with any changes to
the project status.
Using a project status report template, like the one below, will help make sure
you don’t leave out any pertinent details when you’re communicating with
stakeholders.
PROJECT CLOSURE STAGE
Once you’ve achieved your project goals and the results have been signed off on by your stakeholders,
it’s time for the project closure stage.
In the project closure stage of the project management process, you:
Hand off deliverables
Release team members and project resources
Analyze project performance in a project retrospective
A project retrospective is as much about reviewing the success of the project as it is about extracting
learnings that can apply to future projects. Projects will never go without obstacles, and there will
always be things to learn that will ease the progress of other projects.
There are many ways to run a project retrospective meeting, but you should try to identify your biggest
wins and losses and come up with solutions. If you’re an external consultant, you might even ask your
client for feedback.

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What is a Project Life Cycle?

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