There are a number of approaches to managing project activities including lean, iterative, incremental, and phased approaches.

Regardless of the methodology employed, careful consideration must be given to the overall project objectives, timeline, and cost, as well as the roles and responsibilities of all participants and stakeholders.

The Traditional Project Management Approach

A traditional phased approach identifies a sequence of steps to be completed. In the "traditional approach", five developmental components of a project can be distinguished (four stages plus control):

Typical development phases of a project

1. project initiation
2. project planning and design
3. project execution and construction
4. project monitoring and controlling systems
5. project completion and review

Not all projects will have every stage, as projects can be terminated before they reach completion. Some projects do not follow a structured planning and/or monitoring process. And some projects will go through steps 2, 3 and 4 multiple times.

Many industries use variations of these project stages. For example, when working on a brick-and-mortar design and construction, projects will typically progress through stages like pre-planning, conceptual design, schematic design, design development, construction drawings (or contract documents), and construction administration.

In software development this approach is often known as the waterfall model i.e., one series of tasks after another in linear sequence. Waterfall development works well for small, well defined projects, but often fails in larger projects of undefined and ambiguous nature.

The Cone of Uncertainty explains some of this as the planning made on the initial phase of the project suffers from a high degree of uncertainty. This becomes especially true as software development is often the realization of a new or novel product. In projects where requirements have not been finalized and can change,requirements management is used to develop an accurate and complete definition of the behaviour of software that can serve as the basis for software development. While the terms may differ from industry to industry, the actual stages typically follow common steps to problem solving —"defining the problem, weighing options, choosing a path, implementation and evaluation."

PRINCE2

PRINCE2 is a structured approach to project management, released in 1996 as a generic project management method. PRINCE2 provides a method for managing projects within a clearly defined framework. PRINCE2 describes procedures to coordinate people and activities in a project, how to design and supervise the project, and what to do if the project has to be adjusted if it does not develop as planned.

PRINCE2 provides a common language for all participants in the project. The various management roles and responsibilities involved in a project are fully described and are adaptable to suit the complexity of the project and skills of the organization.

Agile Project Management

Agile project management approaches based on the principles of human interaction management  are founded on a process view of human collaboration. In the agile software devlopment or flexible developmentapproach, the project is seen as a series of relatively small tasks conceived and executed as the situation demands in an adaptive manner, rather than as a completely pre-planned process.

Project Processes

Traditionally, project management includes a number of elements: four to five process groups, and a control system. Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project management processes will be used. Major process groups generally include:

• project initiation
• project planning or development
• project build, production or execution
• project monitoring and controlling
• project closing and review

Project Initiating

The initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project.If this stage is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’ needs. The key project controls needed here are an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to fix them.

The initiating stage should include a plan that encompasses the following areas:

• analyzing the business needs/requirements in measurable goals
• reviewing of the current operations
• financial analysis of the costs and benefits including a budget
• stakeholder analysis including users, and support personnel for the project
• project charter including costs, tasks, deliverables, and schedule

Project Planning and Design

After the initiation stage, the project is planned to an appropriate level of detail. The main purpose is to plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to effectively manage risk during project execution. As with the Initiation process group, a failure to adequately plan greatly reduces the project's chances of successfully accomplishing its goals.

Project planning generally consists of

• determining how to plan (e.g. by level of detail or rolling wave);
• developing the scope statement;
• selecting the planning team;
• identifying deliverables and creating the work breakdown structure;
• identifying the activities needed to complete those deliverables and networking the activities in their logical sequence;
• estimating the resource requirements for the activities;
• estimating time and cost for activities;
• developing the schedule;
• developing the budget;
• risk planning;
• gaining formal approval to begin work.

Project Executing

Executing consists of the processes used to complete the work defined in the project plan to accomplish the project's requirements. Execution process involves coordinating people and resources, as well as integrating and performing the activities of the project in accordance with the project management plan. The deliverables are produced as outputs from the processes performed as defined in the project management plan and other frameworks that might be applicable to the type of project at hand.

Project Monitoring and Controlling

Monitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary, to control the execution of the project. The key benefit is that project performance is observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the project management plan.

Monitoring and controlling includes:

• Measuring the ongoing project activities ('where we are');
• Monitoring the project variables (cost, effort, scope, etc.) against the project management plan and the project performance baseline (where we should be);
• Identify corrective actions to address issues and risks properly (How can we get on track again);
• Influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control so only approved changes are implemented.

In multi-phase projects, the monitoring and control process also provides feedback between project phases, in order to implement corrective or preventive actions to bring the project into compliance with the project management plan.

Project maintenance is an ongoing process, and it includes:

• Continuing support of end-users
• Correction of errors
• Updates of the software over time

Project Closing and Review

Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.

This phase consists of:

• Project close: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phase
• Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items) and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase.
• Post Implementation Review: This is a reflection of the "lessons learned" from the all stages of the project

Project controlling and project control systems

Project controlling should be established as an independent function in project management. It implements verification and controlling function during the processing of a project in order to reinforce the defined performance and formal goals. The tasks of project controlling are also:

• the creation of infrastructure for the supply of the right information and its update
• the establishment of a way to communicate disparities of project parameters
• the development of project information technology based on an intranet or the determination of a project key performance index system (KPI)
• divergence analyses and generation of proposals for potential project regulations
• the establishment of methods to accomplish an appropriate the project structure, project workflow organization, project control and governance
• creation of transparency among the project parameters

Transfomation Associates have a many years of experience of hands-on project management and delivering complex solutions. Contact us now to discuss how we can tailor a project management approach to best fits your organisation's needs.