2.1. Identifying the Project Life Cycle (PMBOK, Section 2.1)

Projects are born, they live, and then they die. Morbid, isn't it? But that simple analogy of being born, living, and dying is exactly what the Project Management Institute (PMI) calls the duration of a project: the project life cycle. A project life cycle is the project from start to finish. Every project in the world has its own life cycle. Consider any project you've ever worked on, whether it is in construction, manufacturing, or information technology. Every project was born (initiated), lived (planned, executed, monitored, and controlled), and then died (closing). That's the project life cycle.

If we were to visit a technology guru and check out his projects, he'd have a different life cycle from what a construction company's projects may have. Every project life cycle is unique to the nature of the work being completed.

Because every project has its own life cycle, regardless of the application area, it's tough for PMI to ask specific questions on this subject. You'll likely encounter questions about what a project life cycle is, but not on the activities that would take place in a project's life cycle.

2.1.1. Examining a Project Life Cycle

A project is an uncertain business: the larger the project, the more uncertainty. It's for this reason, among others, that projects are broken down into smaller, more manageable phases. A project phase allows a project manager to see the project as a whole and yet still focus on completing the project one phase at a time.

A life cycle is almost always comprised of multiple phases. You can identify a project life cycle, most often, by the phases that may exist within the project. A construction project may, for example, move through these phases:

• Research

• Pre-construction

• Site work

• Foundation

• Framing

• Rough-in

• Interior finishes

• Exterior finishes

• Landscaping

The end result of a phase generally creates a project deliverable and allows the project to move toward its completion. Check out the preceding list. Just because a phase has been completed does not necessarily mean that the next phase can automatically begin. A phase-end review is needed to determine that the phase has met all of its obligations and then to authorize the initiation of the subsequent phase. A phase-end review is also known as a phase exit, phase gate, or a kill point.

A kill point is an ideal opportunity to "kill" a project at the end of a phase.

Imagine a construction project to build a new sports complex for your city. The foundation of the entire sports complex may not need to be 100 percent complete for the framing of the building to begin. The framing could begin as long as the risk associated with starting this phase of the project was acceptable. The practice of overlapping phases is called fast-tracking (we'll see this again in Chapter 6 in a discussion on project time management). While fast-tracking does save project time, it can increase project risk.

Fast-tracking is an example of schedule compression, but it can increase project risk. Fast-tracking is not the same as lead time, which is negative time between project activities.

In most organizations, regardless of the project manager's experience, management wants to see proof of progress, evidence of work completed, and good news of how well the project is moving. Phases are an ideal method of keeping management informed of the project progression. The following illustration depicts a project moving from conception to completion. At the end of each phase, there is some deliverable that the project manager can show to management and customers.

Project Life Cycle Characteristics

Because every project in the world is unique, it's impossible to say what exactly must happen in every phase of the project life cycle. There are, however, characteristics of every project life cycle that are universal:

• Phases are typically sequential and allow subsequent phases to begin.

• Project costs and staffing requirements are generally low at the project's beginning phases, while costs and resources are highest in the project's intermediate phases. As the project moves towards completion, the cost and resource requirements generally wane.

• The likelihood of the project's success is always lowest during the early phases of the project. As the project moves towards completion, the likelihood of the project success increases.

• Stakeholders have the highest influences on the project's product during the initiating phases, as Figure 2-1 demonstrates.

Every project moves through phases, and phases comprise the project life cycle. Phases are logical approaches to segmenting the work, but they primarily allow management, an organization, or a project manager to have better control over the work done in each phase. Each phase within a project determines:

• The work that will happen in each phase

• The deliverables that will be created as a result of each phase

• How the phase deliverables will be reviewed, approved, and validated

• The needed resources for each phase

• How each phase will be approved to allow successor phases to launch

2.1.2. Comparing Project Life Cycles and Product Life Cycles

There must be some distinction between the project life cycle and the product life cycle. We've covered the project life cycle—the accumulation of phases from start to completion within a project, but what is a product life cycle?

A product life cycle is the whole life of the product the project has created. If your company had a brilliant idea to create a new piece of software, initiated and managed a project to create the software, and then implemented the software, that would be most of the product life cycle. The remainder of the product life cycle is the usage and support of the software until some day, sadly, the software is determined to be out-of-date and retired from your organization. The product life cycle is the whole gosh-darn span of time, from concept to project to usage to retirement.