1.3 Understand the project life cycle - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

<v ->I said a few minutes ago that I wanted</v> to return to the idea of the project life cycle, and I'd like to do that now. I'd like to us to talk about this idea that I'd suggested before. Remember, a project life cycle is predicated on a very simple idea, but a very powerful one. It says that projects have a beginning, they have an actual work point, and then they have an end. So a project starts, the activity is done, and then the project is expected to be terminated. Now, what we're gonna see over the course of these lessons is this is a recurring theme, this idea of the life cycle. So what I'd like you to do for me is two things. Number one, focus on what I'm saying here in describing the life cycle. But also number two, keep it in the back of your mind, because we're gonna return to this in some later lessons. And I might say something like, "Remember when we talked about the life cycle? And remember how that played out? And we're gonna see why that's important in these other contexts." So if you look at the life cycle here, you see some interesting features of it. First of all, most life cycles, generally speaking, are set up around the idea of a four stage process. The first stage of the project is called the conceptualization phase. Conceptualization is when we are coming up with our ideas. What do we want to do? What do we think would help our organization? How should we be developing this new product, or this new process improvement, or this service? So at this point we're trying to develop a business case for the new project. Does it make sense? Conceptually, does this fit in with what we're currently doing? Does it fit in with our corporate strategies? Is it promising? Is it something we should consider? And during this focus, this idea of developing a business case, we're really trying to decide whether or not the project has a certain feasibility. Now if we pass through this, and if we say yes, there's a lot to be recommended with this project, then we move on to the planning stage. Now, in the planning stage, this is when the project team starts to form, when the project manager is usually assigned to the project full time now, and is given the command start putting together the means by which we're gonna make this work. How do we get this project off the ground? And planning is just that. Planning is not intended to actually be doing the work of the project. Planning is setting the stage in order to make sure the project is going to follow on successfully. So a fair amount of time is spent on planning. The third stage is the execution stage. Now notice if you see there on the Y axis, you'll see that we call this person hours. This is another way of saying activity. In some organizations, they may use a dollar figure on their Y axis, and they say, "We think of it in terms of the actual money spent." Any of these are appropriate measures. All they refer to is the magnitude of activity in some means. And it's during the execution phase of the project that the actual work is being done. This is when the software is being coded and tested. This is when the bridge is starting to be built, the materials brought to site, the foundations laid. This is when the new service is starting to be instituted in the organization. This is when all the critical steps are actually being done to take those earlier plans and bring them to fruition. So at the back end of the execution phase, hopefully, we're looking now at a successfully completed project to this point in time, and now we're ready to start saying goodbye. We're ready to start shutting it down. And during the final fourth stage is termination. This is when we begin actually closing out the project. Because the work has essentially been completed, we're now at the point where we can start closing out the accounts. We can start reassigning personnel if necessary. We do our final tests, our final quality checks. We bring the customer very closely in to make sure that they're content with what we've done. So in other words, we do all the necessary steps at this point to close the doors, turn the key, and turn off the lights. And that's really the four stages of the project. The point that you want to bear in mind, if you would, is when you look at that project life cycle is notice how it follows this this sort of arching upward until it finally gets to the execution when the maximum amount of money is being spent, and then it tails off on the backside as well. That's the idea of a life cycle, and that's what characterizes the project life cycle as well. So what is our goal in these lessons for this course? Well, we have a few, and so I'd like to talk about them in order if I could. The first one is an idea of developing an appreciation for projects, which seems a little bit counterintuitive at first because you're listening to lessons on projects. Doesn't that imply appreciation? I think when I say appreciation for projects, I don't just mean that projects are important. I mean that projects have the capability for allowing us to do all sorts of things that we'd never done before. But at the same time, an appreciation for the dangers, for the difficulties, for the problems associated with projects. That it's not all simple. It's not all successful. That there is a lot of challenges to make this happen. And we have to appreciate both the benefits and the drawbacks in order to gain the full understanding of projects. Second goal is to understand the fundamentals of project management. Now, over the course of these lessons, we're going to be looking at precisely that. We're going to talk about a variety of different features and functions that project managers and their teams have to engage in in order to manage projects correctly, successfully, and productively. And those fundamentals as the old song went, the fundamental things apply. The fundamental things apply when it comes to project management. We have certain aspects of planning, of organizing, of controlling that we think of in management, and we're going to apply them specifically in a project management setting. And that's our goal, is to develop an appreciation and an understanding of the fundamentals. Now, in order to get there, we're going to be doing a few things. The organization of this course is going to allow us, number one, to take a look at project scope. How do we start developing that conceptualization and planning? Remember when we talked about our project life cycle? The first stage is conceptualization. That's where scope management kicks in very dramatically. We're going to understand risk management. What are the risks inherent in the projects you're running? Have we thought about them? And more importantly, have we thought about mitigation strategies? How do we avoid the mine fields that we could potentially be walking our way through? We're going to spend a fair amount of time with planning and scheduling because in many ways this is the heart of project management. You have a unique challenge. Someone in top management has come up with an idea. Maybe you've come up with an idea. But you have a creative notion. Folks, the waste baskets of the world are filled with failed creative notions. Creative notions are very common in many situations. The question is, do we understand how to take a creative idea and actually make it come to fruition? And it's only through effective planning and scheduling that we're going to understand the necessary critical steps in getting from that creative idea to an actual product, or an actual service, or something that brings value to our organization. Along the pathway, we have to find ways to know how the project is going. How are we doing in midstream? A project can last years. Some big building projects, some massive bridges, or massive new concrete constructions can last multi years before completion. How do we know in the middle of that point in time, are we still on track? Are we not on track? How far off track are we? Do we know? If we don't have good answers to these questions, it's very easy to start allowing that project to spin out of control because we haven't been paying attention to the critical elements that can help give us clues as to the status of that project. So evaluation and control is going to be a very important component of this course. Finally, termination and close out. How do we close out a project successfully? Alternatively, if a project is failing, if a project just isn't working, how do we terminate it? How do we know the steps involved in early termination to close it out to minimize the damage? Should we close it out? Should we let it continue? These are important questions to ask ourselves when we get to that stage in time. So what I'm saying is effective projects have effective completions. Poor projects or projects that are no longer useful for our organization can still be effectively closed if we understand what we're trying to do, and we do it correctly. So these elements overall in the project that we're gonna be talking about in these upcoming lessons are going to give us a very well-rounded global comprehensive view of the challenges of project management. And I hope you enjoy as we move forward these different steps, and I hope more importantly, that they're thought provoking, that we think and reflect back on what it is that we've talked about, and how each of these elements builds to create an overall comprehensive view of projects and project management. Thank you.