Learn the basic steps of a project life-cycle and improve your planning skills.
How to Plan a Project Efficiently?
In project management, there are always equal chances for a project to succeed or fail. Sometimes, even if the project is planned exceptionally well, it still fails. One of the main tasks of a project manager is to create a project plan for a successful project delivery. Proper project planning will create a systematic approach that can be applied later to any other project.
5 phases of project life-cycle
For any type of project is important to be structured and defined throughout the entire lifecycle. One way to do this, according to PMI (Project Management Institute), is to sort it into the five phases. Each phase is goal-oriented, has its characteristics and deliverables. In reality, these phases might not always happen in chronological order.
*According to PMBOK the phase number and sequence in most of the cases is determined by the project team and project type.
The project life cycle consists of five phases:
Phase 1:
Initiation
The first phase of project lifecycle is conceptualizing. Initiation is the step, where ideas are explored, preliminary research gets done, and prospects are determined. Ideas have to be represented convincingly so that the stakeholders and investors greenlight the project. Initiation activities determine the project feasibility. If the decision is positive, then the project can move to the next step.
Phase 2:
Planning
In the second phase of project management, all the planning happens. The main goal of this step is to create a project plan. It should not only guide the project execution but should also be a realistic snapshot of the project in its entirety. Creating a project plan is a complex process, and should be considered as the most crucial step of the project management.
During this stage, the following actions have to be done:
Define the roles and responsibilities of every project participant;
Hold a kick-off meeting to bring stakeholders together and discuss the project in detail;
Develop a scope statement — the document that describes what should be the outcome of the project;
Develop a scope baseline — it identifies all the deliverables to be produced for the project and all the work to be done;
Develop the schedule and cost baselines;
Create a baseline management plan;
Develop the staffing plan;
Analyze project quality and risks;
Organize and plan communication (reports, meetings, decisions, and problem resolutions).
Once the project plan is complete, it is essential to communicate its content to the sponsor to receive approval and clarify if any changes are needed. Next steps include execution and control of the project plan and define key stakeholder roles/responsibilities in the upcoming phases.
Phase 3:
Execution
During the execution phase, all the processes are implemented, resources are allocated, and project tasks are assigned. The goal of the project team is to start creating deliverables and seek to accomplish the project objectives. All activities that happen in this phase can determine whether or not your project will be a success.
Phase 4:
Monitor and control
The aim of this phase is performance and progress tracking. During this step, you have to establish measures to ensure that the project is going according to the plan, budget, and time frames. The project manager can adjust the schedule or resource allocation plan if needed. A couple of things that can be implemented to track the project progress are review meetings, regular project performance reports, and status reports from the team.
2. Set measurable targets
Your targets should be realistic enough to be measured. Think about how you will track them. Changes in the project are inevitable and can make a significant impact on the project. Therefore the project baseline is crucial for project success. Create a baseline for performance measurement (a combination of scope, time, and cost baseline) with realistic targets, which will represent a standard to manage your project's performance. The project baseline will improve future project plans and estimates.
4. Assess all the risks
List all the possible risks that may appear. What happens if tasks won't meet expected deadlines? What will you do if costs end up being much higher than you initially budgeted? First, think of how the identified risks can be mitigated. Then spend some time with your team to identify the actions to be taken for every possible negative outcome. Remember that you always should have a plan B if anything unexpected happens.
5. Organize your resources in one place
Don't spend time emailing files and other resources back and forth. Set up a proper digital document management system to stop wasting time searching for the right information. Google, Dropbox and others offer free and paid cloud storage and sharing.
To monitor the task progress and communicate in the same place, a collaborative workspace should be set up. Project management applications like Infolio allow you to collaborate with teams, share and store files, and communicate with stakeholders in the same place.
6. Keep a clear and accessible schedule
Make the project schedule available to everyone. You could use a whiteboard in the office, calendar, or a convenient project management application. When you assign a task to an employee, make the deadline obvious. Everyone should know exactly when their tasks should be completed and what other teammates do.
Remember that there is no magic formula for efficient project planning and management. But staying organized and ensuring efficient communication will move you ahead. Project management software with the right project tracking templates will help you staying updated and monitoring the process wherever you are. Effective teamwork, smart workflow organization, and reliable project management tools form the foundation for your project success.
If you need to create a plan for your upcoming project
try our Project planning template.
It offers a comprehensive example of your workflow organization, which you can fully customize to fit your team's needs.
How to use this template?
Create a new project and choose the Project planning template to start. All Infolio templates include some demo content. Feel free to remove it once you've familiarized yourself with
the concept.
The tasks are grouped by the steps of project planning: "Ideation", "Plan and strategy development", "Communication organization", "Milestones" and "Deliverables". Example tasks provide general guidance, remove them and add your own tasks and lists with ease.
Group tasks by Status to track their progress (e.g. "Working on", "Needs approval", "Needs to be planned", "Needs assistance", "Done") . In this view you can easily add new statuses to your workflow or rearrange existing ones. Update the status of any task by dragging and dropping it to the corresponding column.
To see how tasks are distributed within your team, group the project by Assignee. In this view, you can reassign tasks quickly by dragging and dropping them between columns.
If you need any further help or if you have suggestions about how to improve
this template, don't hesitate to let us know!
