Mastering the Project Life Cycle: Initiation to Planning
Project Life Cycle Management
A project is first initialized, then planned, and while it is running, it is monitored and controlled.
Project Initialization
It is important to strive for good management at the initial stage to minimize problems later.
Description of Project
The project description is a process of selecting and refining ideas and perspectives from stakeholders into clearly defined objectives, key success criteria, and risk assessments. It should be clear and precise for universal understanding.
Drafting the Project Initiation Document (PID)
The project details should be incorporated into a document that must be formally agreed upon by the project sponsors and communicated to all stakeholders. This document will outline what is needed to plan and resource the project. The PID defines what the project aims to achieve, its importance, who will manage it and their responsibilities, and how and when everything will happen.
The PID should contain details of:
- Goals and Objectives: The purpose of the project and what it will achieve.
- Project Scope: What is included or excluded from the project.
- Project Deliverables: The specific outputs produced.
- Identified Risks and Constraints: Potential issues and contingency plans.
- Assumptions made about the project.
- Organizational Structure, Roles, and Responsibilities: A diagram outlining the structure, including full-time roles and assignments.
- Project Control Mechanisms: How control is exercised within the project, including supporting reporting and monitoring.
- Information Structure: Who, what, when, and how communication will occur. This includes communication frequency (e.g., monthly, weekly) and methods (e.g., email, letter).
- Stakeholders and their Involvement: Identification of internal or external stakeholders and how they will be kept informed and engaged.
- Planning Focus and Milestone Plan.
- Project Budget.
Project Planning
Planning is a disciplined process supporting the coordination and management of resources like time, people, and money to achieve product and project parameters established by management. In this stage, emphasis is placed on planning the work necessary to produce the final project, rather than focusing solely on the technical aspects of product creation.
- Technical Objectives (TO): The ‘what’ question will be addressed through target revision by the technical project manager and the team.
- Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): Technical objectives are achieved by developing a WBS, which is a list of tasks to be carried out.
- Resource Commitment (WHO): This addresses who will perform the work. Organizational units responsible for work components are incorporated into the WBS at the appropriate level of detail, detailing resource allocation.
- Timeline and Estimation (WHEN): In relation to planning, this addresses the duration of each work item, when it will be completed, and what resources and assets will be used for its performance. This involves estimation.
- Budget: How much will the project cost?