Project Management is very responsible process, this involves managing many activities and processes form project start to finish. There are many activities like understanding of the project requirements, planning, developing, managing, documenting, and closing the project.
All the activities of the Project Management Process are mainly grouped into 5 Phases or five major process groups. These 5 Phases of Project Management are 1. Project Initiation, 2. Project Planning, 3. Project Execution, 4. Project Monitoring and Controlling and 5. Project Closing, also referred as Project Management Steps or Project Management Stages.
1. Project Initiation
Project initiation phase is the first and crucial stage in the project Life cycle. The goal of the Initiation Phase is to define what the project should accomplish and create the business case.
Project manager should have a proper understanding of the project’s purpose, goals, requirements, and risks by end of this phase. Project manager will perform the following activities during this phase to ensure the project success.
- Feasibility Study
- Develop a Project Charter
- Identify Key Stakeholders
- Get it approved
All the information related to the project are documented in the Project Charter and Stakeholder Register. The project is officially authorized once the project charter is gets approved.
Following are the important templates used to create Project Initiation Process Documents:
- Project Proposal
- Business Case
- Feasibility Study
- Project Scope
- Stakeholder Register
- Project Charter
2. Project Plan
Project plan is developed in this phase to achieve the project goals. This includes project requirements, cost, resources, and timelines.
In this phase, Project team will define a project plan that explains how the project will be done, who is responsible to complete the tasks to reach each milestone, and duration of tasks, etc. The planning phase very important and that should define the project in sufficient details to ensure all the project specifications and requirements are followed to achieve the project requirements goals and expectations.
And the following are the important templates used to create Project Planning Process Documents:
- Project Plan
- Resource Plan
- Quality Plan
- Risk Plan
- Communication Plan
- Cost Estimation
- WBS
- Roles and Responsibilities
3. Project Execution
In this process, all the activates defined in the Project Plan are executed. And the Tasks are completed to deliver the project requirements. This is the most important for the project teams as all the team members will collaborate and work together to achieve the project goals and produce the project deliverables.
Below are the list templates used to create Project Execution Process Documents:
- Minutes of Meeting
- Project Status
- Project Update
- Expense Management
- Change Management
- Issue Management
- Risk Management
- Quality Control
By end of this phase, all the project work is completed and the end products, deliverables and services are achieved while both primary and secondary stakeholder requirements are satisfied.
4. Monitoring and Controlling
This process ensure that the deliverables are according to the project requirements and specifications defined in the project plan. This phase is crucial to check if the project is on right track and take the right actions to deliver the successful project. Monitoring and controlling phase involve, tracking, reviewing, and regulating the performance of the project.
Project Managers keep track of the project cost, project timelines and accuracy of the outputs. And identifying of the changes, deviations, and potential problems to quickly address the issues and take corrective actions is also an important task in this phase.
Following are the useful templates to create Monitoring and controlling Process Documents:
- Change request form
- Change Log
- Cost estimator
- Issue Log
- Risk Log
5. Closing
Final and the critical phase in the project management life cycle. Once all the project requirements are achieved and project deliverables are hand overed, we must close the project officially. We close the project ensuring that all the Project activities are completed, resource allocated to the project is released and all the leanings are documented. And officially sign off the project with customer with a project closer document.
Here are the list of Templates templates used to create Project Closing Process Documents:
- Lessons Learned
- Post Implementation Review
- Project Closer Report
Conclusion
Project Management is a very responsible and important task in the Project Management Process. You can utilize our Free or Premium Project Management Templates and effortlessly mange every phase of your projects using our easy to use professional Project Management Templates.