Even if you have all the right ingredients, projects will fail without proper management. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Without a methodological approach that tracks every step, action and outcome, it’s extremely difficult to successfully transform an idea into a profitable venture.
Successful companies use the project life cycle to map out the steps and activities throughout a project. The project life cycle is comprised of four phases to help effectively manage a project:
- Initiation: During this stage, every aspect of an idea is considered—including revenue feasibility, target audience, delivery and overarching project goals.
- Planning: The second phase focuses on preparing and organizing everything that will be used in the creation of the deliverable. You should clearly define and agree upon stakeholder/customer needs as well as potential project risks. All the work of this phase ensures that things will run smoothly in the next one.
- Execution: This is the phase where everything you’ve planned for begins to take shape. The better you planned for this phase, the fewer problems, questions or issues that will arise.
- Closure: Too often, companies fail to complete this phase—and companies are wrought with repeating the same mistakes over and over. During closure, you pull the entire project together, compiling and placing all data into the appropriate reports. Doing this phase well ensures the project can be replicated in various divisions or geographic marketplaces.
Each phase is comprised of multiple steps and can be overwhelming without the right resources in place. Verdi, a company of The Brookfield Group, can help you manage the project and bring discipline and validity to each step. In addition to our seasoned project management consultants, we offer low-cost, intuitively designed project management software and a host of other tools and templates that work across all platforms. Visit Verdi to learn more.
