What are the five steps of the project management process?

What are the five steps of the project management process?

The project management process offers clear steps you can take to get projects done on time, within budget, with reduced risk, and with more predictable results. In order to begin with a concept and end with a successful product or service, it is critical to complete the following five steps for every project:

• Initiating. The initiating step involves formally recognizing that a new project exists. Generally, some project goals, objectives, and major milestones are also established during the initiation step. Typically, to summarize, Initiating the project is determining what the project should accomplish, defining the goal of the project, developing a project charter

·         Planning. The planning step consists of defining resources and developing a schedule and a budget in order to achieve project objectives. This step is generally the most detailed step of the project management process. When done correctly, it has the greatest impact on the success of the project. Since this step is so critical, a common project management phrase to remember is "plan the plan."
The following steps are the foundation of project planning and must be completed as part of the Planning Step of the project management process:

1. Write a scope statement
2. Clearly define all activities
3. Develop a schedule
4. Determine resource needs
5. Estimate the project's cost
6. Develop a budget
7. Create a project plan

There are several additional actions that must be performed as part of project planning:

1. Define the project's quality standards and develop a quality management plan.
2. Assign roles and responsibilities, which includes developing a staff management plan and acquiring staff for the project team.
3. Develop a communication system, which includes creating a communications management plan that will make sure information is distributed to the right people at the right times in an appropriate format.
4. Identify and evaluate the seriousness of potential project risks.
5. Develop responses to the potential risks, which includes compiling a risk management plan.
6. Decide which resources must be procured from outside the project's parent company, which includes developing a procurement management plan.
7. Determine which sources can provide the needed resources for a project, which includes defining resource requirements, such as what level of quality is expected for contracted work.

·         Executing. The executing step involves coordinating personnel and resources in order to achieve the project goal. A key phrase to help you remember this step is "work the plan."
The following steps are the foundation of project executing and must be completed as part of the Executing Step of the project management process:

1. Develop a project team
2. Distribute information
3. Solicit and select contractors
4. Complete activities
5. Measure the project's performance
6. Perform quality assurance activities

·         Controlling. The controlling step involves measuring progress toward project objectives and taking corrective action to bring the project back within the stated goals and objectives.
Controlling encompasses the following areas of a project:

1. Scope
2. Schedule
3. Cost
4. Quality
5. Risk
6. Performance reporting

• Closing. The closing step consists of gaining acceptance of the final product, bringing the project to an orderly conclusion, and reviewing lessons learned from the project.

A project's final report, or "project history," consists of the information recorded in performance, status, and close-out reports, as well as other project documents. A project's final report should include:

• What organizational structure was used for the project
• What project management techniques were used
• Who was involved in the project and in what capacity
• What went right and what went wrong during the project and why
• What corrective action was taken to bring errors back in line with project goals
• What activity completion processes were used

The information in the project's final report supplements a project's historical database, so the information can be used to help plan future projects.

Why Scrum is better than Waterfall?

As part of Risk Management Strategy, lets look at “What If” scenarios.

Possible reasons software development projects could stop before their projected date of completion are:

·         There can be budget cuts

·         There can be a change in the project priority

·         The project may have gone over the approved budget

·         The company may be taken over

Lets assume that there was a budget cut and what if the project stopped at 60% of the effort/time? Let’s compare Project W (Waterfall) with Project S ( Agile Scrum)

Project W  ( Pure Waterfall)	Project S ( Agile-Scrum)
10% of effort/time in setting up and Project scope	10% of effort/time in setting up and Project scope
25% of effort/time is spend on analysis of the software product	80% of effort/time spent in analyzing, developing and testing product increments that are delivered iteratively every sprint.
40% of effort/time is spent on development and system testing	10% of effort/time involved in setting up and scoping the project.
15% of effort/time in fixing defects and executing integration, regression thro’ acceptance.
10% time spent to properly close the project.

If Waterfall Project W stopped working at say 60% of effort/time spent, then only possibly 10% of the features would have been delivered.

If Agile Scrum Project S stopped working at 60% of effort/time spent, then a good amt of sprints are already delivered (probably 40%-50% of the product backlog features) to the customers.

If we compare the earned values between the Pure Waterfall and Agile scrum,

Project W  ( Pure Waterfall)	Project S ( Agile-Scrum)
0% of effort/time involved in setting up and scoping the project.	0% of effort/time involved in setting up and scoping the project.
10% of effort/time is spend on analysis and design documentation, source code value of the software product	50% of effort/time spent in analyzing, developing and testing product increments that are delivered iteratively in bi-weekly basis.
Completed testing Packaged software is worth 10% of the total value	Completed testing Packaged software is worth 50% of the total value

Pure Waterfall and Agile Scrum compare

Agile Scrum and the traditional waterfall methodologies are fundamentally different. In fact, they are based on different philosophies.

Waterfall project management assumes a definite beginning and a definite end with clearly defined steps to follow that in theory could be repeated again and again.

In Agile Scrum, however, within a sprint, there are steps to be taken to complete the incremental release and some similarities may be found in these steps.

In waterfall Projects, the milestones to be reached.

In Agile scrum, backlog items and user stories to be worked may be compared to the milestones to be reached.

Waterfall Project executing and controlling together may be compared with what happens during Agile scrum sprint. However, the project plan must be executed during executing and controlling stages.

Agile sprint is more flexible than a waterfall project plan. Basic level of control may also be compared with what happens in the daily scrum, or daily standup in which scrum master checks the progress of team members and make sure they stay on track to achieve their goals.

Waterfall’s Closing may be compared within a sprint to a sprint review and sprint retrospective

Agile’s sprint review and sprint retrospective is not true closing unless it is a final release. It is expected that development will still go on at the start of another sprint.

ITIL- Information Technology Infrastructure Library

ITSM - Information Technology Service Management

ITSM is a process- centered approach to deliver IT Services that meets business needs according to performance targets.

Critical Success Factors

The Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are needed for a Process, Project, Plan, or IT Service to succeed: Strong leadership is essential - Have a dedicated, trained and committed process owner Existing IT environment needs mature assessment There should be well defined implementation & continuous service improvement plan There should be clearly defined roles & responsibilities - Responsibility-Accountability-Authority Clear defined goals & objectives -Specific, Measurable, achievable, realistic & timely Key performance indicators & metrics -measure achievement of Continual Service Improvement goals Controlling Changes Making Quick And Accurate Changes Based On Business Priorities Protecting Services When Making Changes

ITSM Life cycle Summary

ITSM lifecycle supports deliver better service for customers, facilitates to gain efficiencies and become more effective and improve the ability to create value over time.
Service strategy:

Service Design:

Service Transition

Service Operations

Continual Service Improvement

7 principles of Prince2

The Project includes 7 principles of Prince2

• Continued business justification
• Learn from experience
• Defined roles and responsibilities
• Manage by stages
• Manage by exception
• Focus on products
• Tailor to suit the project environment  

Project and Project Management definition

Project:

"A project is a unique series of actions designed to accomplish a unique goal within specific time and cost limitations."

"A project is a temporary organization that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed Business Case.”

Temporary refers to each project has a definite beginning and end
Organization refers to project team

(Projects that continue forever are known as business as usual or operation.)
Business Case Reasons for the project

Project Management:

Project Management is the planning, delegating, monitoring and controlling all aspects of a project, and the motivation of those involved, to achieve the project objectives within the expected performance tarets of time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risks.

What is a Project? What makes projects different? The Five characteristics of a project.

Project:

A project is a temporary organization that is created for a purpose of delivering one or more business products according to the agreed Business Case.

Five characteristics of a project: 

Change(Project introduces new things)

Temporary(Has a definite start and end date. The maintenance of the project is considered business as usual) 

Cross- functional (Involves people from different fields)

Unique (Two identical projects are never done.  If identical projects are done then it is a process and part of business as usual)

Uncertainity (Change + Unique = Uncertinity)

Importance of Project

The main challenge in this world is to be successful in balancing to two competing essentials such as maintaining current operations and transforming business operation to compete in the future.

Maintaining current business operations are business business as usual includes but are not limited to the following:

Transforming business operations to compete for the future is the business change and may include the following :

As the change in business, technology, social, regulatory etc accelerate with competion 

Processes

Processes are structured set of activities designed to achieve specific objective.

Life Cycle Phases

The life cycle phases and the processes for each phase.