Introduction
Managing projects is a complicated and expensive proposition. Extreme care should be taken at all stages to see that any project is managed efficiently. A brief report on the project life cycle is given below. It is proposed that this is the way that future projects will be managed
Main body
Project Management Life Cycle: A typical project usually goes through four stages from start to finish. Initially, a project initiation process takes place, where project feasibility is conducted and a proposal for the project is prepared. Once the project is approved, the four stages mentioned above start sequentially.
- Project planning: Project planning involves a number of tasks like an estimation of costs and other requirements, estimation of the time frame or schedule, breaking down the work into different phases, creation of a project team, etc. Provisions for quality management, risk management, etc should also be taken into account. This stage is important because it allows the team members to have a clear idea of what is expected of them. “Project Planning is essential for a project’s success. Project Planning helps team members to understand their responsibilities and expectations from them.” (Project Planning Phase, Visitask – Project Management Training and Resources).
- Project execution and control: Irrespective of size and complexity, this is the most important phase of any project. To ensure quality and speed a lean six sigma approach will be adopted. In most cases, this is also the longest phase in the project life cycle. “Typically, this is the longest part of the project management lifecycle, where most resources are applied.”. (Purpose, Four: Project execution and control). Lean six sigma is adopted because it will result in an ideal combination of speed and quality. Even though this system was adopted initially in the manufacturing sector, it is now being used for speedy and efficient implementation of projects as well. Both lean and six sigma are contradictory in nature, but it is possible to combine them to obtain the benefits of both systems. In lean six sigma, the DMAIC model will be used. DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control. “No matter how you approach deploying improvement teams in your organization, they will all need to know what is expected of them. That is where having a standard improvement model such as DMAIC is extremely helpful.” (Using DMAIC to improve service process, Lean Six Sigma, Army Business Transformation Knowledge Centre). The definition stage is where the aim and end result of the project is defined. A project charter and stakeholder analysis will have to be prepared. The measure is to find out problem areas in the whole process. Prioritization matrix, Pareto charts, and control charts can be used for this. Analyzing involves the understanding of the cause and effect in problem-solving. “Analysis is extremely important to determine relationships and the factors of causality”. (Analyse, What is DMAIC. Techfaq).
conclusions based on the above steps, the next step is to improve the whole process wherever necessary so that faults and errors are brought down. Control is a very important phase in this process. It actually involves controlling any variances or differences in the project process from what was planned.
Strict adherence to the above suggestions will result in an efficient organization that will be able to complete projects in time and within budget.