Project Development Life Cycle.

We will discuss the project development life cycles and project development approaches in this article. We will discuss in more details about predictive, adaptive, and hybrid projects. We will also discuss the project managing processes from the viewpoint of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling, and closing processes groups.

This 5 processes group continuo to foundation concepts to the project management work and the understanding critical for project manager success.

Predictive life cycle.

The project life cycle is how we organize the work on the project, and the project managing process is how we organize managing that management work. Both project life cycle and project management processes are necessary to complete the project. A predictive life cycle is also called a plan driven. The project manage within predictive life cycle are refer to a traditional or predictive project. They used a plan driven that requires scope, time, and cost to be determined in the early life of the project and before the work begins.

For example, the construction project will typically to be managed to use the predictive life cycle. This preferred cycles they used when project scope is well understood and known.

In the predictive life cycle, the previous project phase need to be completed before the start of the next phase.

In predictive life cycle project run in a sequential cycle in the following processes groups:

• Initiating
• Planning
• Executing
• Closing

The overall project management process can be managed through these processes’ groups. Monitoring and controlling managing group runs concurrently with planning and executing processes.

The traditional project management approach, which is a predictive approach, emphasize liner processes, documentation, upfront planning, and prioritization of the project work.

As we can see in the below image:

We start with a project or a phase in initiating process group. During initiation we determined the reason why the project needed to be undertaken. At the time, the project initiator assigned the project manager and identified the key stakeholders.

Once initiating processes are completed, the project manager together with the team impark on project planning where the plan how will execute the project. At this time, the project manager and the team has closing engagement with the stakeholders where identify the scope, the schedule, the cost, the quality requirement and determine how they will manage project risks.

Once the planning is completed, the project team execute the plan. At this time, the project team delivered all the work required to complete the project objectives. The project manager with together monitoring and controlling team are responsible for overseeing the project execution and verify that the project is executed as per the plan.

Once all the deliverables are completed, verified, and accepted by the customer, sponsor or the requesting organization, the project manager will need to initiate the closing process where close the project or phase and archive all the relevant project management documentation.

In reference to predictive project approach, PMI describe a process-based approach to project management. In breakdowns project management to 49 processes which are grouped in 10 knowledges areas:

• Project integration management
• Project scope management
• Project time management
• Project cost management
• Project quality management
• Project resources management
• Project communication management
• Project risk management
• Project procurement management
• Project stakeholder management

In the next, we will look at PMI processes groups and knowledge areas chart in details. We will use the below chart as a guide if we manage a project using plan driven or traditional project approaches.

This chart is used if the project manager is mainly focused on the development detailed plan and following the plan in executing stage. You should have a good understanding of the planning and executing processes if you manage a project using a traditional or predictive project approach.

As you can see from a chart, the planning processes groups consist of the highest number of processes, there is 26 processes in total. In traditional project approach, project manager together with the team need to have a very solid plan in every knowledge area. It is the job of the project manager to develop the project management plan is an important part of project integration. This plan is a guideline in how to manage project throughout a knowledge area.

It is the job of project manager is plan how to manage scope, schedule, cost, quality, and other relevant project areas. The project management plan is the most important project document as it provides a guide to the project team on how to execute a project work. The project manager and the team need to manage and control the team members’ performance and recommend changes to project work if needed.

The below table is a contention of the project management process group table:

Where we can see the last 6 knowledge areas and lists of processes. Here we can see the knowledge area of project resources management, project communication management, project risk management, project procurement management, and project stakeholder management.

As we said before the planning processes group consist of more processes than any other processes group that support the fact that PMI stress on the importance of proper planning because planning is a basis of successful executing of the project.