1/29/2023

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
EM-323

Lec#: 2

Session 2K20 (Engineering Technology)

Project Management Life Cycle

Course instructor: Dr. Shahzad Ashraf

PROJECT MANAGEMENT LIFE CYCLE

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT LIFE CYCLE

It is a logical sequence of activities to accomplish the project’s goals or objectives.
Regardless of scope or complexity, any project goes through a series of phases during
its life. Typically a standard Project Life Cycle consists of four primary phases.

 Initiation
 Planning
 Execution
 Closing

Project Initiation
 The first phase of project management, a business problem or an opportunity is
identified the Business Case which provides alternative solutions are defined.
 Feasibility study is conducted to investigate the likelihood of each solution option
addressing the business problem and a final recommended solution is put
forward.
 If recommended solution is approved, the project is initiated to deliver the
approved solution.
 The TERM OF REFERENCE (TOR) is completed which define the objectives,
scope and structure of the new project.
 Hence the project manager is appointed, who recruit a project team.

Following are the activities undertaken during the initiation phase

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Project Initiation Cont…

Develop a Business case
A business case is created to define the problem or opportunity in detail and indentify
a preferred solution for implementation. The business case includes

 A detail description of the problem or opportunity.

 A list of the alternative solutions available;
 An analysis of the business benefits, costs, risks and issues;
 A description of the preferred solution;
 A summarized plan for implementation.
Undertake a feasibility study
At any stage during or after the creation of a business case, a formal feasibility study
may be commissioned. The feasibility study will investigate whether

• forecast costs are reasonable,

• the solution is achievable,
• the risks are acceptable and the identified issues are avoidable
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Project Initiation Cont…

Establish the terms of reference (TOR)
The terms of reference define the vision, objectives, scope and deliverables for the
new project. They also describe the organization structure and activities, resources and
funding required to undertake the project.
Any risks, issues, planning assumptions and constraints are also identified.
Appoint the project team
The project team is now ready to be appointed. The project manager should be
appointed prior to recruiting the project team. The project manager creates a detailed
job description for each role in the project team, and recruits people into each role
based on their relevant skills and experience.
Setup a project office
It is a physical environment within which the team is based. There may have one
central project office, or it is possible to have a virtual project office with project team
members located around the world. A project office environment should include…
• Equipment, such as office furniture, computer equipment, stationery and materials.
• Communications infrastructure, such as telephones, computer network, e mail, Internet access,
file storage, database storage and backup facilities.
• Documentation, such as a project methodology, standards, processes, forms and registers.
• Tools, such as accounting, project planning and risk modeling software. 6
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Project Initiation Cont…

Perform a phase review
At the end of the initiation phase, it is basically acheckpoint to ensure that the project
has achieved its objectives as planned.

Project Goals and Objective

Goals and objectives are statements that describe what the project will accomplish, or
the business value the project will achieve.

A project goal is a long-term aim to accomplish but could never reach by only one or
a few projects. They are high level statements that provide overall context for what the
project is trying to achieve, and should align to business goals.

Example: One of the goals of a project might be to "increase the overall satisfaction levels for clients
calling to the company helpdesk with support needs".

The Project Objectives are lower level statements that describe the specific, tangible
products and deliverables that the project will deliver.

Example: To "upgrade the helpdesk telephone system by December 31 to achieve average client wait
times of no more than two minutes". 7

Project Planning
Once the scope of project has been defined in-terms of reference, the project enters the
detail planning phase.
It involve the following activities.

• Project plan outlining the activities, tasks, dependencies and timeframes;

• Resource plan listing the labor, equipment and materials required;
• Financial plan identifying the labor, equipment and materials costs;
• Quality plan providing quality targets, assurance and control measures;
• Risk plan highlighting potential risks and actions to be taken to mitigate those risks;
• Acceptance plan listing the criteria to be met to gain customer acceptance;
• Communications plan describing the information needed to inform stakeholders;
• Procurement plan identifying products to be sourced from external suppliers

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Project Planning Cont...

It is now time to undertake detailed planning to ensure that the activities performed
during the execution phase of the project are properly sequenced, resourced, executed
and controlled.
The following are the project planning activities.

Create a project plan

The first step in this phase is to document the project plan. A work breakdown
structure (WBS) is identified which includes a hierarchical set of phases, activities
and tasks to be undertaken to complete the project. The activities and tasks are then
sequenced, resources are allocated and a detailed project schedule is formed.
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Project Planning Cont...

Create a resource plan
The level of resource required to undertake each of the activities and tasks listed
within the project plan will need to be allocated. A detailed resource plan is required
to identify the

• Type of resource required, such as labor, equipment and materials;

• Quantity of each type of resource required;
• Roles, responsibilities and skill sets of all human resource required;
• Specifications of all equipment resource required;
• Items and quantities of material resource required

A schedule is assembled for each type of resource so that the project manager can
review the resource allocation at each stage in the project.

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Project Planning Cont...

Create a financial plan
A financial plan is created to identify the total quantity of money/ budget required to
undertake each phase in the project.

The total cost of labor, equipment and materials is calculated and an expense
schedule is defined which enables the project manager to measure the forecast spend
versus the actual spend throughout the project.

Create a Quality plan

To ensure that the quality expectations are clearly defined and can reasonably be
achieved, a quality plan is documented. The quality plan includes..
• Defines the term quality for the project.
• Lists clear and unambiguous quality targets for each deliverable. Each quality target
provides a set of criteria and standards to be achieved to meet the expectations of
the customer.
• Provides a plan of activities to assure the customer that the quality targets will be
met.
• Identifies the techniques used to control the actual quality level of each deliverable
as it is built. 11

Project Planning Cont...

Create a Risk plan
What could go wrong..? what could happen that may affect one’s ability to deliver
the project on time..? How to avoid them..?

The risk plane identifies the actions required to prevent each risk from occurring, as
well as reduce the impact of the risk should it eventuate. Developing a clear risk plan
is an important activity within the planning phase, as it is necessary to mitigate all
critical project risks prior to entering the execution phase of the project.

Create an acceptance plan

To deliver the project successfully, it is needed to gain full acceptance from the
customer that the deliverables produced by the project meet or exceed requirements.

An acceptance plan is created to help achieve this, by clarifying the completion

criteria for each deliverable and providing a schedule of acceptance reviews. These
reviews provide the customer with the opportunity to assess each deliverable and
provide formal acceptance that it meets the requirements as originally stated.

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Project Planning Cont...

Create a Communications plan
A process to identify how each of the stakeholders will be kept informed of the
progress of the project. The communications plan identifies the types of information
to be distributed to stakeholders, the methods of distributing the information, the
frequency of distribution, and responsibilities of each person in the project team for
distributing the information.

Create a Procurement plan

The last planning activity to identify the elements of the project to be acquired from
external suppliers.

The procurement plan provides a detailed description of the products (that is, goods
and services) to be acquired from suppliers.

It also describes the process for the selection of a preferred supplier (the tender
process), and the ordering and delivery of the products (the procurement process).

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Project Planning Cont...

Contract the suppliers
The external suppliers may be appointed at any stage of the project, it is usual to
appoint suppliers after the project plans have been documented but prior to the
execution phase of the project. Only at this point will the project manager have a clear
idea of the role of suppliers and the expectations for their delivery.

A formal tender process is undertaken to identify a short list of capable suppliers and
select a preferred supplier to initiate contractual discussions with. The tender process
involves creating a statement of work, a request for information and request for
proposal document to obtain sufficient information from each potential supplier and
select the preferred supplier.

Once a preferred supplier has been chosen, a contract is agreed between the project
team and the supplier for the delivery of the requisite products.

Perform a phase review

At the end of the planning phase, a phase review is performed. This is a checkpoint to
ensure that the project has achieved its objectives as planned.

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The End

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