PROJECT MANAGEMENT 6670

ASSIGNMENT NO. 1

SUBMITTED BY:
MENAL KHALID
COL MBA, SEMESTER 2.

PROJECT LIFE
CYCLE &
PRODUCT LIFE
CYCLE
 1. What Is The Project Life Cycle?
The project life cycle describes the high-level process of delivering a project and the steps
you take to make things happen. It’s how projects happen; how the phases of a project
conduct a team from brief through to delivery. Every project has a start and end; it’s born,
matures, and then “dies” when the project life cycle is complete. It is defined these five
process groups, or phases, which come together to form the project life cycle.
1. Project Initiation
2. Project Planning
3. Project Execution
4. Project Monitoring & Controlling
5. Project Closure

The 5 Stages of the Project Life Cycle:

Below, it is explained that what happens in each of the 5 phases of project management:

1. Project Initiation: Defining What Needs To Be Done

The project initiation phase involves kicking off the project internally and with the
client. Initiating the first phase of the project life cycle is all about kicking off a project with
your team and with the client, and getting their commitment to start the project. You bring
together all of the available information together in a systematic manner to define
the project’s scope, cost, and resources. The goal of the initiation phase is to take the
(sometimes) loose brief of a project and understand what the project needs to do and achieve
in order to be successful.
 That usually necessitates identifying the project stakeholders and making sure they
all share the same perception of what the project is and the business case—the problem that
the project is trying to solve. It’s during this project initiation phase that you also decide
whether delivering the business case is feasible. As a project manager, you will need to
conduct adequate research to determine the goals of the project, and then propose a solution
to achieve them.

Key Project Management Steps During Project Initiation:

 Make a project charter: What is the vision, objective, and goals of this
project?
 Identify the high-level scope and deliverables: What is the product or service
that needs to be provided?
 Conduct a feasibility study: What is the primary problem and its possible
solutions?
 Ballpark the high-level cost and create a business case: What are the costs and
benefits of the solution?
 Identify stakeholders: Who are the people this project affects, how does it
affect them, and what are their needs?
Typically for Prince2 or PMI methodologies, the above is summed up in
a Project Initiation Document (PID), but in an agency, the information is
usually captured in an initial statement of work (SoW).

2. Project Planning: Defining How to Do What Needs To Be Done

During the planning phase, project managers create the roadmap and clarify the
project goals. After receiving approval to proceed in the initiation phase, you can begin
project planning. This is arguably the most critical project phase in the life cycle. Planning is
where you define all the work to be done and create the roadmap that you follow for the
remainder of the project. This is when you figure out how you’re going to perform the project
and answer these questions:
 What exactly are we going to do?
 How are we going to do it?
 When are we going to do it?
 How will we know when we’re done?
At this point in the project life cycle, you have to decide how you and your team will attain
the goals of the project. It’s worth evaluating those goals with three criteria:
what’s Possible, Passionate, and Pervasive?

 Possible: Strive for something that is achievable. Ask yourself, does this
solution match the budget? Does my team have the ability to do this? Do we
have enough time? Setting unrealistic goals is setting yourself up for failure.
 Passionate: Projects are tough, so you want a team that is emotionally
engaged in the project. Ask yourself, is this a project that your team can be
passionate about? Is it something that can bring them together to collaborate
and achieve the same goal? Even though it might be their job to do what you
tell them to do, no one is going to invest into something they don’t think is
worthwhile
 Pervasive: Does this have the potential to become a ground-breaking success?
Is this something that is a complete solution to the problem that was given to
you or is it really just a Band-Aid solution? Does it have the potential to be
improved on, developed, and to become a permanent way of working?
 This is ‘3 Ps’ lens for goals, however, there is also an alternative principle of setting
CLEAR goals. This is a helpful framework to ensure goals are Collaborative, Limited,
Emotional, Appreciable, and Refinable. In addition, it’s prudent to develop a plan for
resources, quality, risk, acceptance criteria, communication, and procurement.

Key Project Management Steps for Project Planning:

 Create a project plan: Identify the phases, activities, constraints, and

schedule, and create a project timeline with a work breakdown structure and
Gantt chart
 Create a financial plan: Create a project budget and cost estimate, and a plan
to meet your maximum cost, complete with allocations across resources and
departments
 Create a resource plan: Build a great team and recruit and schedule the
resources and materials needed to deliver the project
 Create a quality plan: Set your quality targets and measures
 Create a risk plan: Identify the possible risks, assumptions, issues, and
dependencies; assign an owner; and develop a mitigation plan for how will
you avoid/overcome them
 Create an acceptance plan: Assign criteria for what constitutes ‘done’ and
‘delivered’
 Create a communication plan: List your stakeholders and plan the
communication cadence
 Create a procurement plan: Find any 3rd party suppliers required and agree
on terms

3. Project Execution: Making a Project Happen

This is the part of the project life cycle where you finally get to execute on your awesome
project plan. You bring your resources onboard, brief them, set the ground rules, and
introduce them to one another. After that, everyone jumps in to perform the work identified
in the plan.
A project manager's responsibilities during the execution phase involve leading the
team through the project, deliverables, and tasks.
As the project manager, you shift from talking about a project and creating documentation to
getting the green light to proceed with the execution phase. Now, you’re leading the team
and managing them toward delivery. You’ll spend your time in briefings, meetings, and
reviews, and keep the project on track as it moves through the project life cycle.

Key Project Management Steps for Project Execution:

 Team leadership: Cast a vision for success and enable the team to deliver on it
 Create tasks: Clearly define what needs to be done and the criteria for the task
 Task briefing: Ensure the team are clear about what they need to do, by when
 Client management: Work with the client to ensure deliverables are acceptable
 Communications: Ensure you’re informing and updating the right people at
the right time through the right channel

4. Project Monitoring & Controlling: Keeping a Project on Track

During the monitoring and controlling phase, project managers will create status reports
and keep the project on plan.
This is one of the toughest areas in the project management cycle. It involves reporting on
performance and monitoring and controlling the project. That means ensuring the project is
going according to plan, and if it isn’t, controlling it by working out solutions to get it back
on track. As a project manager, you’ll be monitoring and controlling a project in some way
throughout all of the project life cycle phases.

First, that means ensuring you capture the data (usually derived from timesheets and reports
in your project management software) to track progress effectively against the original plan.

Second, it means taking the data and comparing task completion, budget spend, and time
allocated in the original plan. By comparing the actuals against the plan, you can establish
whether or not you’re hitting the objectives for timeline, cost, quality, and success metrics.

And when you realize that things aren’t quite going to plan (they rarely do) it’s figuring out
the options for pivoting the project so that it still delivers something the client is happy with
while meeting the budget, timeline, and quality constraints.

Key Project Management Steps for Project Monitoring And Controlling:

 Cost & time management: Review timesheets and expenses to record,

control, and track against the project’s budget, timeline, and tasks
 Quality management: Reviewing deliverables and ensuring they meet the
defined acceptance criteria
 Risk management: Monitor, control, manage, and mitigate potential risks and
issues
 Acceptance management: Conduct user acceptance testing and create a
reviewing system, ensuring that all deliverables meet the needs of the client
 Change management: When the project doesn’t go to plan, managing the
process of acceptable changes with the client to ensure they’re happy with
necessary changes
You’ve moved through four of the project stages—now it’s time to move on
to the final step in the project management life cycle: closing a project.

5. Project Closure: Ending A Project

Project closure might involve a retrospective, lessons learned, and overall performance
analysis.In this closing phase of the project life cycle, your project is essentially over and
your job as a project manager comes to a close. But the project’s not over yet.
At this point, before everyone forgets, it’s useful to hold a post-project review
meeting or post-mortem to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the project and team,
what went wrong or didn’t go so well, and how to improve in the future.This can be one of
the most rewarding stages of project management, as it’s a great opportunity to recognize and
acknowledge valuable team members and celebrate successes.

Key Project Management Steps for Project Closure:

 Project performance analysis: This is an overall look at how well the project
was managed, and whether the initial estimates of costs and benefits were
accurate. Were there unforeseen risks? What issues arose and how well were
they dealt with? Has the project plan been changed, and how?
  Team analysis: Did everyone do what they were assigned to do? Were
they passionate and motivated enough? Did they stay thorough and
accountable? Was the communication within the project team healthy
and constructive?
 Project closure: Document the tasks needed to bring the project to an
official end. This includes closing supplier agreements, signing off
contracts, and handing in all the necessary project documentation.
 Post-implementation review: Write down a formal analysis of
successes and failure, resulting lessons learned, and suggestions for the
future. At the end of every successful project, you will learn that room
for improvement always remains.

Why Is The Project Life Cycle Important?

While the project life cycle might not sound that interesting, it is important because it’s what
we as project managers lead and facilitate. A project always has to start somewhere: the
problem that needs fixing needs to be defined. A solution to fixing that problem and an
approach to doing it then has to be created. That plan has to then be put into action, and
then that plan has to be tracked to make sure it does what it’s supposed to. The project is
then deployed, performance is evaluated, and the project is officially over.
The project life cycle provides project managers with a pathway throughout projects. It
defines where to start, and where to go next at each stage in the project. No matter how
crazy things get, you’ll have a reliable structure to go back to and regroup on.

2. What Is the Product Life Cycle?

The product life cycle is the process a product goes through from when it is first
introduced into the market until it declines or is removed from the market. The life cycle has
four stages—introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. 

While some products may remain in a prolonged maturity state for some time, all
products eventually phase out of the market due to several factors including saturation,
increased competition, decreased demand, and dropping sales. Companies use PLC analysis
(the process of examining their product's life cycle) to create strategies to sustain their
product's longevity or change it to meet market demand or adapt with/to developing
technologies. 

The 4 Stages of the Product

Life Cycle:
Once a product is developed, it
typically goes through the four
stages of the product life cycle—
from introduction through decline
—before eventually being retired
from the market. 

The four stages of the product life

cycle are introduction, growth,
maturity, and decline. 
1. Stage1: Introduction
Once a product has been developed, it begins the introduction stage of the PLC. In
this stage, the product is released into the market for the first time. The release of a product
is often a high-stakes time in the product's life cycle, although it does not necessarily make
or break the product's eventual success. 

During the introduction stage, marketing and promotion are at a high, and the company
often invests quite a bit of effort and capital in promoting the product and getting it into the
hands of consumers. This is perhaps best showcased in Apple's famous launch
presentations, which highlight the new features of their newly (or soon-to-be) released
products. 

It is in this stage that the company is first able to get a sense of how consumers respond to
the product, whether they like it, and how successful it may be. However, it is also often a
heavy-spending period for the company with no guarantee that the product will pay for itself
through sales. Costs are generally very high during this stage, and there is typically little
competition. The principal goals of the introduction stage are to build demand for the
product and get it into the hands of consumers, hoping to later cash in on its growing
popularity. 

2. Stage2: Growth
During the growth stage, consumers start taking to the product and buying it. The
product concept is proven as it becomes more popular, and sales increase. 

Other companies become aware of the product and its space in the market as it begins to
draw more attention and pull in more revenue. If competition for the product is especially
high, the company may still heavily invest in advertising and promotion of the product to
beat out competitors. As a result of the product growing, the market itself tends to expand.
Products are often tweaked during the growth stage to improve their functions and features.

As the market expands, more competition often drives prices down to make the specific
products competitive. However, sales usually increase in volume and continue to generate
revenue. Marketing in this stage is aimed at increasing the product's market share. 

3. Stage3: Maturity
When a product reaches maturity, its sales tend to slow, signaling a largely saturated market.
At this point, sales may start to drop. Pricing at this stage tends to get competitive, so profit
margins shrink as prices begin to fall due to the weight of outside pressures like increased
competition and lower demand. Marketing at this point is targeted at fending off
competition, and companies often develop new or altered products to reach different market
segments.

Given the highly saturated market, less-successful competitors are often pushed out of
competition during the maturity stage. This is known as the "shake-out point." In this stage,
saturation is reached and sales volume is maxed out. Companies often begin innovating to
maintain or increase their market share, changing or developing their product to satisfy new
demographics or keep up with developing technologies. 
The maturity stage may last a long time or a short time depending on the product. For some
brands and products—like Coca Cola, the maturity stage lasts a long time and is very drawn
out. 

4. Stage4: Decline
Although companies generally attempt to keep their product alive in the
maturity stage as long as possible, eventual decline is inevitable for virtually every product.

In the decline stage, product sales drop significantly, and consumer behavior changes, as
there is less demand for the product. The company's product loses more and more market
share, and competition tends to cause sales to deteriorate. Marketing in the decline stage is
often minimal or targeted at already-loyal customers, and prices are reduced. 

Eventually, the product is retired out of the market altogether unless it is able to redesign
itself to remain relevant or in-demand. For example, products like typewriters, telegrams,
and muskets are deep in their decline stages (and in fact are almost or completely retired
from the market). 

3. Differences between Product and Project Lifecycles

A product life cycle is a conceptual map of where a product's sales are and where
they may be headed. However, it has no input on what to do with the product. If a company
believes its product is entering the decline phase, it will probably create a plan to either
rejuvenate the product or cease production, but that is not inherent in the product life cycle.

By contrast, a project life cycle is all about action. In project life cycle examples, the
business typically maps out the steps needed to complete a project with specific targeted
results. When you want to distinguish the stages of a product life cycle, look for steps that
are planned out ahead of time instead of reached organically. There is some interrelationship
between product life cycle and process life cycle, since different stages of a product's life
may call for different plans.

 A Project Life Cycle can be a subset of Product Life Cycle. It can be part of one or
more product life cycle phases.
 In a project life cycle, you only develop or enhance a product, but Product life cycle
includes anything and everything done related to the product. So categorically,
Project Life Cycle is a subset of Product Life Cycle.
 A Project Life Cycle has a definite end, but a Product life cycle may not. Some
products sell 100’s of years.
 Product Life Cycle phases are sequential and does not overlap, while Project Life
cycle phases may or may not be sequential as they can overlap.
 In Product life cycle once a phase is over it is over, it will not repeat. In Project Life
Cycle its phases may repeat depending upon the requirements.