Five Junctures of Project Management

Project management is both an art and a science. It requires a level of emotional intelligence to interact with and achieve results with stakeholders from different domains and seniority levels. Additionally, it requires a level of organization and structure to ensure focus and results. As a result, there is a methodology for successfully planning and executing projects. That methodology is known as the five phases of project management. It was developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Whether you're an expert or a newbie, I will share everything as per my experience to know or want to know about the five phases of project management in this article.

Here’s an overview of each juncture and the activities involved.

• Juncture - 1 -Project initiation How to Begin

During the first of five phases of the project management lifecycle, project initiation, you’ll formally launch the project. You’ll assemble the executive sponsor and the senior-most stakeholders of the project. Below are some of the standard tools and templates that you’ll want to develop during the project initiation phase.

Business case: is a formal template that provides economic justification or reason for launching the project. A business case will require the project's requestor to deliver what will be done, why it should be done, and who is required to make the project successful. Additionally, you may need to provide a SWOT Analysis of the project. SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Typically, the business case's creator(s) will need to develop a financial model to justify that the internal rate of return (IRR) explains the cost. While we recommend a business case, you'll find that many organizations skip its' development.

Feasibility study: is a formal assessment of whether the project is practical. Typically, a feasibility study differs from a business case as it provides a Go/No-Go decision. We don’t believe a feasibility study is required. You’ll actually find that many organizations won't develop one.

Project charter: is a short document, typically one page, that provides a high-level summary of the project, why it is being undertaken, and the team involved in planning and executing the work. Occasionally, you'll find project charters, also referred to as project definitions or project statements. You’ll want to create a project charter once the project has been given the green light to be launched, irrespective of whether a business case was developed or a feasibility study was undertaken. When you develop the project charter it is particularly important to outline the project's goals and objectives.

• Juncture - 2 -Planning: How to Map Out a Project

When people think of project planning, their minds tend to jump immediately to scheduling but you won’t even get to that part until the build-up phase. As per my experience Planning is really about defining fundamentals: what problem needs solving, who will be involved, and what will be done.

Determine the real problem to solve

Before you begin, take time to pinpoint what issue the project is actually supposed to fix. It’s not always obvious. Say the CIO at your company has asked you, an IT manager, to develop a new database and data entry system. You may be eager to jump right into the project to tackle problems you have struggled with firsthand. But will that solve the company’s problem? To increase the project’s chances of success, you must look beyond the symptoms you have observed “We can’t get the data out fast enough” and “I have to sift through four different reports just to compile an update on my clients’ recent activity” to find the underlying issues the organization is trying to address. Before designing the database, you should ask what type of data is required, what will be done with it, how soon a fix is needed, and so on. If you don’t, you’ll run the risk of wasting time and money by creating a solution that is too simplistic, too complicated, or too late or one that doesn’t do what users need it to do.

Define project objectives

One of your most challenging planning tasks is to meld stakeholders’ various expectations into a coherent and manageable set of goals. The project’s success will be measured by how well you meet those goals. The more explicitly you state them at the outset, the less disagreement you will face later about whether you have met expectations.

In the planning phase, however, much is still in flux, so you’ll revise your objectives later on, as you gather information about what you need to achieve.

Determine scope, resources, and major tasks

Many projects fail either because they bite off more than they can chew and thus grossly underestimate time and money or because a significant part of the work has been overlooked. One tool that can help you avoid these problems is the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), which aids in the process of determining scope and tasks and developing estimates.

The underlying concept is to subdivide complex activities into their most manageable units. To create a WBS:

• Ask, “What will have to be done in order to accomplish X?”
• Continue to ask this question until your answer is broken down into tasks that cannot be subdivided further.
• Estimate how long it will take to complete these tasks and how much they will cost in terms of dollars and person-hours.

As a result of your thoughtful planning, you’ll be able to rough out an estimate of how many people with what skills you’ll need for the project. You’ll also have a good idea of how long the project will take.

• Juncture - 3 -Execution / Implementation: How to Execute the Project

It’s time to put the plan into action. The implementation phase is often the most gratifying, because work actually gets done, but it can also be the most frustrating. The details can be tedious and, at times, overwhelming.

Project plan and Gantt chart: during project execution the project plan and the 

Gantt chart will need to be maintained. Priorities change, and therefore the project plan and the Gantt chart will eventually change as well.

Task dependencies: are a link between two tasks that documents when one task is reliant on another task. A task may not be started or completed before another task being started or completed. It is crucial to identify task dependencies during project execution, but it is also vital to track the progress of the dependent tasks. If a task becomes off track, the task owner with a dependency will need to adjust the course.

Collaboration: project execution involves an unlimited number of stakeholders. Whether your project is made up of a team of colleagues that you work with day-in and day-out, or the project is made up of an extensive cross-functional team, you need technology to collaborate and track progress. It's your source of truth where you can collaborate as one team and execute projects successfully.

• Juncture - 4 -Monitor and control : How to measure Performance

Whether you have a formal project control system in place or you do your own regular check-ups, try to maintain a big-picture perspective so that you don’t become engulfed by details and petty problems. Project-monitoring software systems can help you measure your progress.

No single approach works for all projects. A system that’s right for a large project can easily swamp a small one with paperwork, whereas a system that works for small projects won’t have enough muscle for a big one.

Manage problems

Some problems have such far-reaching consequences that they can threaten the success of the entire project. The most common are: time slippage, scope creep, quality issues, and people problems.

Pay attention to small signs of emerging problems, such as a team member’s increased tension and irritability, loss of enthusiasm, or inability to make decisions. When you see signs like these, get to the heart of the problem quickly and deal with it. Don’t let it grow from a small irritant into a disaster.

Status reports is a formal document that provides insight into the current state of the project. Project status reports typically will include a high-level description of where the project stands at a point in time, what's been accomplished, and what's next. They may also provide insight into any issues, risks, or critical decisions made.

KPIs is a type of performance measurement. KPIs or key performance indicators measure success. KPIs vary by domain and industry. However, we recommend that they be outlined during the second phase of the project management lifecycle, project planning.

• Juncture - 5 -Closeout: How to Handle End Matters

Though some projects feel endless, they all, eventually, come to a close. How do you, as project manager, know when to make that happen? And how do you go about it?

Evaluate project performance

Before closing out your project, your team needs to meet its goals (or determine, along with key stakeholders, that those goals no longer apply). Compare your progress with the scope everyone agreed on at the beginning. That will tell you how well the project has performed and if there’s still work to do. When you discuss your findings with your stakeholders, make sure you reach consensus with them on how “finished” the project is. Keep your scope front and center so everyone uses the same yardstick to measure success.

Close the project

If all has gone as planned with your project, then it’s time for celebration. Even if, as is more likely, there are some rough spots along the way the project takes longer than expected, the result is less than hoped for, or the costs overtake your estimates it’s still important to recognize the team’s efforts and accomplishments.

Debrief with the team

No matter what the outcome, make sure you have scheduled a post-evaluation time to debrief and document the process so that the full benefits of lessons learned can be shared. The post-evaluation is an opportunity for discovery, not for criticism and blame. Team members who fear they’ll be punished for past problems may try to hide them rather than help find better ways of handling them in the future.

Thanks : Jasmeet Singh