Project management life cycle

Project management life cycle is a determined methodology that can be applied to any project regardless of its scope and complexity, so that any project is organized, tracked and learned through a series of stages during its life. In brief, definition can be explained as follows: logical sequence of activities and events which are necessary to drive the work from its initiation to accomplishment. The phases include the following four: Initiation, Planning, Execution and Closure. Actually there are two PM models – basic one and extended which may include some more phases related to industrial or business specificity. PM methodology helps to group project activities into phases, so that the project manager and project team can efficiently plan and organize work and resources on each step and activity, as well as objectively measure the success of objectives, and reason their decisions for further steps.

Such a determined approach makes a good background for creating templates consisted of standard activities, tasks and steps necessary to accomplish every stage on every project performed in organization. This kind of standardization enables turning the PM approaches into electronic format, and using special software to drive them. Let’s consider the basic stages:

• Initiation – on the first stage, the necessity, feasibility, scope, time, budget and critical success factors of the project are defined along with the approach and methods to be used to deliver the required products and results.
• Planning – this stage includes a detailed identification of all the project elements and matters including project team, specified allocation of project resources and timeline, assignments of project tasks, evaluation of risks, definition of criteria for quality and successful completion of each deliverable, etc.

• Execution – this is the working phase where the project plan is implemented through practical actions that lead to successful project accomplishment. It is necessary to control performance and quality of all the required activities to know if they match the project’s requirements.
• Closure – this stage identifies the project completion including testing, evaluation and formal acceptance of the final product by the customer, learning obtained project experience, disposing resources, etc. 

As project life cycle is definitely formalized, it can be managed via special software where you can manage your projects in terms of every stage including sub-stages and tasks (you can see the review on a striking example of such a tool below).

Example of software:

VIP Task Manager is PM software that works via client-server technology, featuring agile tools that can be used for real-time planning and controlling tasks and arrangements included into life cycle of PM used in your company. Actually, with a help of this multi-user tool you are free to review your tasks in Task List view to make specified to-do lists for employees, Task Tree view which is like a diagram where you can layout all stages and explain them as a detailed actions plan, and Calendar view to set up timelines and personal agendas.