Project phases and life cycles are an integral part of the project management process and are designed to ensure the successful delivery of a project. The type and number of project phases in a project life cycle can vary greatly, depending on a number of variables such as the delivery cadence and the development approach being used.
Some common phases in a project life cycle include:
- Start Up: This phase begins when the business case has been approved and the project charter has been authorized. During this phase, the high-level roadmap is developed, initial funding requirements are established, project team and resource requirements are defined, a milestone schedule is created, and procurement planning is defined. These deliverables should be completed before the start-up phase is exited, which will be reviewed at an origination phase gate review.
- Feasibility: This phase is used to determine whether the business case for the project is valid and whether the organization has the capability to deliver the intended outcome.
- Design: During this phase, planning and analysis are carried out to design the project deliverables that will be developed.
- Plan: In this phase, the high-level information for the building is decomposed into detailed plans.
- Build: The construction of the deliverables, including integrated quality assurance activities, is carried out during this phase.
- Test: Final quality review and inspection of the deliverables are conducted before they are transitioned, put into use, or accepted by the customer.
- Deploy: The project deliverables are put into use and transitional activities, such as sustainment, benefits realization, and organizational change management, are completed.
- Close: The project is closed, project knowledge and artifacts are archived, project team members are released, and contracts are closed.
Phase gate reviews, also known as stage gate reviews, are often conducted at the end of each phase to ensure that the desired outcomes or exit criteria for the phase have been achieved before proceeding to the next phase. These exit criteria may be tied to acceptance criteria for deliverables, contractual obligations, performance targets, or other tangible measures.
There are two main types of project life cycles: predictive and incremental. A predictive life cycle is one in which one phase is completed before the next one begins. This type of life cycle is well-suited to a predictive development approach, as each phase is only performed once and focuses on a particular type of work. However, there may be situations that require certain phases to be repeated, such as changes in scope, requirements, or market conditions.
An incremental life cycle, on the other hand, involves an incremental development approach. In this case, there are multiple iterations of the plan, design, and build phases, with each subsequent build adding functionality to the initial build.
Adaptive development approaches, such as agile, do not use a traditional life cycle or phases. Instead, they use flow-based scheduling to optimize the flow of deliveries based on resource capacity, materials, and other inputs, and to minimize waste and optimize efficiency and throughput. These approaches, such as Kanban scheduling, are often used in lean and just-in-time scheduling.
Key concepts:
- Project phases refer to the distinct stages of a project, each of which has a specific set of goals and deliverables. Examples of project phases include feasibility, design, build, test, deploy, and close.
- A Life cycle refers to the complete set of phases that a project goes through from start to finish.
- A Phase gate review, also known as a stage gate review, is a review conducted at the end of each phase to ensure that the desired outcomes or exit criteria for the phase have been achieved before proceeding to the next phase.
- A Predictive life cycle is one in which one phase is completed before the next one begins. This type of life cycle is well-suited to a predictive development approach.
- An Incremental life cycle involves an incremental development approach, with multiple iterations of the plan, design, and build phases.
- Adaptive development approachs, such as agile, do not use a traditional life cycle or phases. Instead, they use flow-based scheduling to optimize the flow of deliveries and minimize waste.
- Kanban scheduling is a scheduling system used in lean and just-in-time scheduling approaches. It is often adopted by projects that use adaptive methodologies and practices.