Why should project managers always make a plan Phase 2 before executing and completing task Phase 3?

The project management lifecycle is a step-by-step framework of best practices used to shepherd a project from its beginning to its end. It provides project managers a structured way to create, execute, and finish a project.

This project management process generally includes four phases: initiating, planning, executing, and closing. Some may also include a fifth “monitoring and controlling” phase between the executing and closing stages. By following each step, a project team increases the chance of achieving its goals.

The project management lifecycle provides projects with structure and tools to ensure they have the best chance of being successful. As a project manager, it’s a process you’ll want to know well.

Read more: What Does a Project Manager Do? A Career Guide

The Project Management Lifecycle: 4 Steps

1. Initiating

In the initiation phase, you’ll define the project. You’ll sort out the project goals, scope, and resources of the project, and what roles are needed on the team. Clarifying what stakeholders expect out of the project, and what exactly the project is aiming to achieve (and why) will give the project and team clear direction.

This is a crucial phase to the project’s success. Without clarity around what needs to be achieved and why, the project runs the risk of not accomplishing the end goals and meeting the expectations of stakeholders.

Some steps in the initiation phase include:

• Communicating with stakeholders to understand the purpose and desired outcomes of the project

• Identifying project scope

• Determining SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound)

• Clarifying resources like budget and time constraints

• Confirming team size and roles required

• Determining how often and which stakeholders will be involved throughout the project

• Compiling a project proposal and project charter

Tools and documents used in the initiation phase can include:

• Project proposal: The project proposal defines a project and outlines key dates, requirements, and goals.

• Project charter: This is a definitive document that describes the project and main details necessary to reach its goals. This can include potential risks, benefits, constraints, and key stakeholders.

• RACI chart: A RACI chart plots the roles and responsibilities of members on a project team.

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2. Planning

In the planning phase, you’ll determine the steps to actually achieve the project goals—the “how” of completing a project. 

You’ll establish budgets, timelines, and milestones, and source materials and necessary documents. This step also involves calculating and predicting risk, putting change processes into place, and outlining communication protocols. If the initiation phase is assembling your troops, the planning phase is deciding what to do with them.

The planning phase can include the following steps:

• Deciding on milestones that lead up to goal completion

• Developing a schedule for tasks and milestones, including time estimates and potential time buffers

• Establishing change processes

• Determining how and how often to communicate with team members and stakeholders

• Creating and signing documents such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or requests for proposal (RFPs)

• Assessing and managing risk by creating a risk register

• Holding a kick-off meeting to start project

Tools you might use in a this phase include: 

• Gantt chart: A horizontal bar chart in which members can see what tasks must be completed in what order, and how long each is expected to take

• Risk register: A chart that lists risks associated with the project, along with their probability, potential impact, risk level, and mitigation plans

Read more: How to Manage Project Risk: A 5-Step Guide

3. Execute and complete tasks

Executing a project means putting your plan into action and keeping the team on track. Generally this means tracking and measuring progress, managing quality, mitigating risk, managing the budget, and using data to inform your decisions. 

Specific steps might include:

• Using tools like GANTT or burndown charts to track progress on tasks

• Responding to risks when they manifest

• Recording costs

• Keeping team members motivated and on task

• Keeping stakeholders informed of progress

• Incorporating changes via change requests

Some tools you might use include:

• Change requests: These are documents used to propose changes to a project’s scope or goals

• Burndown chart: This chart breaks down tasks on a granular level and visualizes the amount of time remaining

4. Close projects

In the closing phase of the project management lifecycle, you’ll conclude project activities, turn the finished product or service over to its new owners, and assess the things that went well and didn’t go so well. It’ll also be a time to celebrate your hard work.

Steps in the closing phase can include:

• Conducting retrospectives and take notes of changes you can implement in the future

• Communicating to stakeholders of the end of the project and providing an impact report

• Communicating with the new owners of a project

• Creating a project closeout report

• Celebrating the end of the project and your successes

Tools used in the closing phase include:

• Impact report: This report compiles a series of metrics that showcase how your project made a difference and is presented to your stakeholders.

• Project closeout report: A project closeout report provides a summary of your project’s accomplishments, and provides key learnings for future project managers to reference.

The following video provides an overview of the project management lifecycle. This is a preview of the Google Project Management Professional Certification.

Getting started in project management

Mastering all steps of the project management lifecycle is an ongoing process that will continue throughout your career. Learning the formal aspects—the tools, steps, and vocabulary used in the process—can set you up for success in your beginning days as a project manager. If you’re interested in deepening your knowledge of project management, consider the Google Project Management: Professional Certificate to learn job-ready project management skills at your own pace.

Related articles

Every project can be broken down into several phases.

In this article I’ll walk you through the phases in the project management life cycle.

Continue reading to learn more about the different project phases.

Project management phases: the simple view

In the most general form, a project can be broken down into:

• Preparation phase
• Execution phase
• Closing phase

The preparation phase is where the project is being set up. The project manager, together with the customer and contractor, will arrange all the formal aspects of the project.

This includes finding the right people to work on the project (establishing a project organization), creating a project plan, setting up a project budget, holding a project kick-off and other activities.

The project team must also gather the requirements and plan the steps for the next phase. Without knowing the detailed requirements (‘What do we need to do?’), the project cannot do anything.

During the execution phase, the project is concerned with all the tasks to turn the project goal into reality. This can mean building something tangible (a product, a building) but also could involve defining a new process (e.g. how a company can find clients online). As you can guess, this takes time.

That’s why the execution phase is usually the phase taking the longest. In terms of complexity this phase will also be the most challenging to manage, because there are so many activities taking place in a tight sequence.

The closing phase is the last one in the project life cycle. Usually it only takes a few weeks or months, which doesn’t make it an easy phase. The last critical tasks have to be completed to make sure the customer is satisfied. There’s no more time for making errors. Everything has to work as planned.

Otherwise the project deadline cannot be met. What’s happening in the closing phase? It’s when the final product or process of the project is prepared for handover to the customer:

• A building is finalized and the customer makes his final inspection.
• Employees are trained for a new process to be used in a company.
• A product is packaged and shipped to the customer. That sort of stuff.

A closer look at the project phases

What I shared with you above was a simplified look at project stages. I wanted to give you the essence before we dive deeper into the project life cycle.

What follows next is an explanation of the way projects are structured in real life. It’s the project phases according to the PMI project phase model.

The 5 Project management phases:

1. Project Concept & Initiation
2. Project Definition and Planning
3. Project Launch or Execution
4. Project Performance & Control
5. Project Close

Phase 1: Project Concept & Initiation

“Manufacturing cost has gone up 7% over the last 2 years. This is killing our profitability! We need to do something about it.”, the CEO of a company says during a board meeting.

“I propose to start a project. We need our top experts to look into this issue and find ways to cut our spending.”

Every project starts with a goal. Or a problem that has to be solved, like in this example.

What happens next? The CEO will delegate the job to one of his managers (let’s say the head of manufacturing), who in turn will look for a suitable project manager. Once a PM has been found, this person will coordinate the next steps. These are, defining the rough scope of the project, setting targets, building a team and documenting the first things in a project charter.

What happens during the project concept and initiation phase are only the first ‘baby steps’ of a project. It is when an organization comes to an agreement that something should be done, and the first actions will be taken. There is not much formalism in the sense that you have to create a lot of project management documentation.

Phase 2: Project Planning

This is the first phase where you really have to go into detail. During the project planning phase, you have to plan every aspect of the project, down to a weekly (or even daily) level.

As you can probably guess, the planning phase is critical:

95% of your project’s success depends on how well you plan things

What you have to do in this phase:

• Define roles and responsibilities – What kind of skills or people do you need in the project? And what do you expect from each of those members?
• Create a scope statement – The scope statement is a document which clearly states what the project is expected to deliver. It also defines the boundaries, i.e. what is not expected from the project.
• Create a project plan (Gantt chart) – Create a project Gantt chart to visualize the flow of the project. This will give everyone on the team clarity on what has to be done by when. Need a good template? Get my project plan template for Excel.
• Define key milestones – Milestones are goals which have to be accomplished during the project. A milestone could be specification completed or product prototype completed.
• Set up a communication plan – A simple table which shows how the team and stakeholders will communicate throught the project. Communication can happen in the form of meetings or by email.
• Perform a risk analysis – It is always better to be prepared for issues than to be surprised. Do a risk analysis to identify the most critical risks and have a “plan B” ready in your pocket.

I cover all the above points in my article on how to create a project plan.

Phase 3: Project Launch or Execution

This is where the rubber meets the road. All tasks defined in the previous phase are now being executed. One after another, or sometimes in parallel. The project team – supported by the project stakeholders – now produces tangible results: A detailed concept outlining the changes driven by the project, or product that will later be sold to the customer.

It’s a very hectic phase which requires good management. Issues pop up, tasks get delayed, people fall sick. All this can (and will) happen, and it’s the project manager’s job to fix those issues and steer the project into the right direction.

The execution phase is also where most of the project budget is spent. Team members will clock a lot of hours, which represent a cost. But the project may also have to purchase goods and services in order to reach the project goal.

Phase 4: Project Performance & Control

This is not really a dedicated phase, but more an ongoing duty of the project management. The project leader has to monitor the progress and quality of the project with respect to several factors:

• Are the project targets being met? – Projects are launched with a specific purpose in mind. As project manager, you should constantly monitor whether the project is on track to meet those targets.
• Are we still within budget? – Tracking effort and cost is one of the necessary (but most disliked) tasks of a PM. Set aside a few hours for it every month, and get my project budget template to make your life easy.
• Are we deviating from scope? – Every now and then, a project will face unforeseen changes. The customer may say: ‘I’ve changed my mind. I want the building to be painted blue, not orange.’  Such change request have to be evaluated by the project team. Maybe the changes require extra budget or require special skills to be implemented.

Phase 5: Project Close

Project close is the last phase in the project lifecycle. These are the final weeks or months during which the project’s end product is finalized and handed over to the customer.

What steps are taken largely depends on the type of project. If we’re talking about an IT project, the closing phase may involve final checks and tests, installing the system at the customer site and training people. In a construction project the customer will inspect the building (or whatever was built) and sign an approval sheet.

The project manager usually will prepare a final report with the actual cost values. Some organizations also do post mortems (also called lessons learned) to evaluate what went well and what didn’t go well in the project, mainly to learn for upcoming projects.

Read also my article Think it’s Over? Not Yet! Four Tips for a Smooth Project Closing.

Don’t let the project phases restrict you

The project phase model is a generic template for structuring projects. It’s good because it optimizes your project for minimum risk: First you do the planning, and then you execute. No messing up of things where you execute first and then discover your results don’t meet the project’s targets.

While a sequential approach is generally the right way, you shouldn’t feel restricted by it. Sometimes it makes sense to start with a certain execution task while you finalize the planning. Starting early with a job reduces the likelihood of a delay. And if you are absolutely sure there’s nothing gonna happen which could make the task a waste of resources, then start early.

Example: You’re leading a manufacturing project for a new truck. The truck is going to be shipped to a customer in Europe 10 months from now.  Due to the booming economy, shipping resources are very scarce. So you decide to reserve a spot on the cargo vessel already now, even though the project is still in the early planning stage (during your risk assessment you’ve recognized the limited shipping resources as a potential risk). Shipping costs $30k, and you need to get the expediture pre-approved by the CEO, because the project budget hasn’t been officially approved yet.

Do you have any questions?

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