Anne, a new assistant account manager at ISB Joinery, has been asked to manage h

Question

Anne, a new assistant account manager at ISB Joinery, has been asked to manage her first project. She’s anxious to follow the project management processes faithfully. She knows there are four phases in the project life cycle, but she’s unsure how to proceed. What is the best advice to give her?

You don't need to come up with a precise budget figure in the defining and organizing phase of the project.

The four phases of the project management process are usually strictly linear.

Returning to the activities and tasks of an earlier phase is a sign that your project is losing ground.

Overlapping tasks and activities can occur between the first two phases, but not in later phases of the project life cycle.

Explanation / Answer

To be successful in the organization or do the things systematically, Anne has to follow Project Life Cycle. There are 4 phases in PLC and every phase has its own importance. Since, PLC is linear in nature, Anne has to follow every step unidirectionally and she cannot skip any of these steps, Four steps of PLC are described below:

1.Initiation Phase:-

During the first phases, the project objective or need is to be identified; this can be a business problem or opportunity. An appropriate response to the need is documented in a business case with recommended solutions. A feasibility study is conducted to investigate whether each option addresses the project objective and a final recommended solution is determined. Issues of feasibility and justification are addressed. Since, she has joined as a Account Manager, she has to look first at the balance sheet of the company, profit & loss statement, all the sale & purchase vouchers.

2.Planning Phase:-

The next phase, the planning phase, is where the project solution is further developed in as much detail as possible and the steps necessary to meet the project’s objective are planned. In this step, the team identifies all of the work to be done. The project’s tasks and resource requirements are identified, along with the strategy for producing them. This is also referred to as “scope management.” Once the project team has identified the work, prepared the schedule, and estimated the costs, the three fundamental components of the planning process are complete. This is an excellent time to identify and try to deal with anything that might pose a threat to the successful completion of the project. This is called risk management. In risk management, “high-threat” potential problems are identified along with the action that is to be taken on each high-threat potential problem, either to reduce the probability that the problem will occur or to reduce the impact on the project if it does occur. This is also a good time to identify all project stakeholders and establish a communication plan describing the information needed and the delivery method to be used to keep the stakeholders informed. Finally, you will want to document a quality plan, providing quality targets, assurance, and control measures, along with an acceptance plan, listing the criteria to be met to gain customer acceptance. At this point, the project would have been planned in detail and is ready to be executed.

3. Implementation Phase:-

During the third phase, the project plan is put into motion and the work of the project is performed. It is important to maintain control and communicate as needed during implementation. Progress is continuously monitored and appropriate adjustments are made and recorded as variances from the original plan. A project manager spends most of the time in this step. During project implementation, people are carrying out the tasks, and progress information is being reported through regular team meetings. The project manager uses this information to maintain control over the direction of the project by comparing the progress reports with the project plan to measure the performance of the project activities and take corrective action as needed. The first course of action should always be to bring the project back on course . If that cannot happen, the team should record variations from the original plan and record and publish modifications to the plan. Throughout this step, project sponsors and other key stakeholders should be kept informed of the project’s status according to the agreed-on frequency and format of communication. The plan should be updated and published on a regular basis. Status reports should always emphasize the anticipated end point in terms of cost, schedule, and quality of deliverables. Each project deliverable produced should be reviewed for quality and measured against the acceptance criteria. Once all of the deliverables have been produced and the customer has accepted the final solution, the project is ready for closure.

4. Closing Phase:-

During the final closure, or completion phase, the emphasis is on releasing the final deliverables to the customer, handing over project documentation to the business, terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources, and communicating the closure of the project to all stakeholders. The last remaining step is to conduct lessons-learned studies to examine what went well and what didn’t. Through this type of analysis, the wisdom of experience is transferred back to the project organization, which will help future project teams.

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