Initiation: Guiding Questions and Tips
Planning: Guiding Questions and Tips
Execute: Guiding Questions and Tips
Closing: Guiding Questions and Tips
🔗 Download a project charter template
🔗 Download a project plan template
🔗 Download a impact report template
🔗 Download a closeout report template
The life cycle is a great way to guide your project in the right direction so that you and your project stay on track and end up in the right place. Most project life cycles have four major phases, each with their own set of tasks and concerns.
The main phases of a project are initiate the project, make a plan, execute and complete tasks, and finally, close the project.
Initiate the project — this is the launchpad for the entire process of your project. In this phase, you'll define project goals and deliverables, identify the budget and resources you'll need, the people involved in your project, and any other details that can impact the successful completion of your project.
Make a plan — creating a plan of how you're going to meet your goals. Plan needs to include a lot of things — a budget, a breakdown of all the tasks that you need to be completed, ways to communicate team roles and responsibilities, a schedule, resources, and what to do in case your project encounters problems or needs to change.
Execute and complete tasks — it's important to point out that your project team has the job of completing the project tasks. Your primary tasks as the project manager are to monitor progress and keep your team motivated. You also remove any obstacles that might come up so that the tasks are executed well and on time.
Close the project — One big reason is so your team has a moment to celebrate all of their hard work. Closing the project is also a chance to evaluate how the project went. You can make note of what worked and what didn't so you can plan better for next time. Even if the project was a massive success, it's helpful to take time to reflect. Closing the project is also a great way to connect with anyone outside your team who may have had interest in the project's goal.
The project life cycle is the path for your project from start to finish. Each project phase builds toward the subsequent phase and helps to create a structure for the project. To recap, the main phases of the project life cycle are: initiating the project, making a plan, executing and completing tasks, and closing the project.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mD0tv6oBWKxDlNpYQsGykJyUJAk9t6d3SaPnt3Yx36Y/edit?usp=sharing
<aside> 💡 The initiation phase is a crucial time for asking stakeholders the right questions, performing research, determining resources, and clearly documenting the key components of a project.
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When starting on a new project, it’s helpful to determine the “5 W’s”of the project. These guiding questions can help you gather important project information and details:
<aside> 💡 Ask three stakeholders from three different areas of the project to describe the project to you. Synthesize those conversations into one project summary.
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All projects should have clear goals. Often, these goals will be determined by senior leaders, with your help.
These guiding questions can help you set project goals: