Project Management Life Cycle in Software Management

What is Project Management Life Cycle?

In the project management life cycle, all the project activities must be grouped into phases so that the project manager and the core team can effectively plan and the core team can effectively measure the achievement of goals and justify their decisions.

Phases of Project Management Life Cycle

The project Management cycle refers to a logical sequence of activities to achieve the project objectives:-

• In the initiation phase the outputs and critical success factors are defined.
• Planning phase envolves breaking down the project into smaller tasks.
• In the execution phase the project plan is implemented.
• Project closure marks the completion of the project.

Project Initiation

In this stage scope of the project is defined along with the approach to be taken. Along with this, the main tasks evolved in this phase are-

• Develop Business Case :- Business case usually envolves:
  1. To Research the business problem.
  2. Identify different available solutions.
  3. Identify all the risks involved.

This templet is unique and is written by experts which gives detailed procedures and sometimes some practical examples also.

• Feasibility Study :- Feasibility is defined as the practical extent to which a project can be performed successfully. It determines whether it would be feasible to continue with the projecct or not.
• Establish project charter :- This describes project vision, objectives, scope thereby defining the boundaries within which the project must be executed and delivered. It helps us to identify the projects objectives, define the complete scope, list all the deliverables and also consider various risks issues and assumptions.

Project Planning

The project plan is created to identify all the phases, activities and tasks. IT provides information about the end date, milestones, activities and all the deliverables. The project interdependencies.

It includes the following:-

• Responsibilities of the project management team members.
• It also includes the standards and methods like algorithms, tools, design techniques, programming language etc to be used.

A project plan helps the manager to understand monitor and control the development of the software project. It also includes the risk analysis and the criterion for successful completion of the project.

Project Execution

In this phase, the project is executed and all the plans which were developed in the previous phase are implemented in this phase. The project management team has the important task of ensuring that all activities are executed as planned.

Project Closure

In this phase, all the tasks are documented and all deliverables are handed over to the customer. Along with this, a post-project review is performed through which the project team identifies or can review projects success. It is a critical step in the management cycle that also validates the successful completion of the project.