The project life cycle includes the stages of the project’s development. The basic elements of the cycle include:
- conceptualization: outlines project goal, scope of work, identifies required resources and stakeholders
- planning: specifications, timetables and other plans are created, work packages are broken out, assignments are made and process for completion is defined
- execution: actual work of project takes place, majority of teamwork is performed and, characteristically, majority of costs are incurred
- termination: project is completed and passed on to customer, resources are reassigned and team members disbanded
Life cycles provide a guiding point for determining the scope and resource requirements of specific projects. By outlining a project’s life cycle, many challenges and potential pitfalls can be pinpointed. More generally, an understanding of life cycles lends itself to a better understanding of how projects function within an organization and how they differ from conventional forms of corporate process.
What do you see as being the primary challenges to introducing a project management philosophy to most organizations? That is, why is it difficult to shift to a project-based approach in many companies?
The adaptive models are more appropriate for project involving higher levels of uncertainty and complexity than the Iterative models. In that sense, they fill a void between Iterative and Extreme models. Adaptive models are now more useful that Iterative models in those situations where very little is known about the solution. Keep in mind that solution discovery is still the focus of these models. Each iteration in the Adaptive models must address not only task completion for newly defined functions and features but also further solution definition through function and feature discovery. It is the discovery part of the Adaptive Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC) models that sets them apart from the Iterative PMLC models.
You currently defined and introduced the Scope Bank to your client, who initially agreed to use it. However, the client seems to have forgotten their agreement. The Scope Bank needs a deposit in order to process a new change request, and the client insists on integrating the most recent change request without removing any functions or features not yet integrated into the solution. You are at an impasse. How will you go about resolving the stalemate?
