I want to know whether there are guidelines for how long each phase should last in a project, i.e. planning phase should take 70% of the project's schedule, etc. Is there research or guidance of how long each phase should last relative to each other?
As project approaches are context-specific, it really depends on the specific type of project and the life cycle used. In general, a predictive-type life cycle will have greater time spent prior to implementation/execution/construction but the specific percentage will vary based on many factors including:
1. Which constraint is most important
2. How much uncertainty exists in the project
3. Will the project be single or multi-release/change
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
The length of each project phase is not a one-size-fits-al. It depends on many factors like project type, importance, risk, approach used and so on. Saving Changes...
Using an apportioning method would be a nice top-down initial approach to project planning. Unfortunately, it would only work for similar projects: same industry, same product type, etc.
My suggestion would be to review previous projects that were similar enough and extract the ratios you are looking for.
Of course, this should only be used in the initial stages of planning. Your ultimate phases will be defined by their milestones, deliverables and activities. Saving Changes...
There isn't a determining rule for calculating phase length. It depends on various factors, like the type of project, project life cycle, project approach, area of knowledge, risk, quality standards... Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
The only comment I can add is that there is insufficient time allotted for planning and close out. Typically the sponsor or owner wants the effort applied to implementation rather than planning and, because of delays and poor planning, wants to prematurely jump to operations.
One should also note that phases can and do overlap
Carpenters have a saying worth considering - "measure twice and cut once". Maybe this concept could apply to project delivery - more planning, less rework. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
While it will depends, between other things, on the type of life cycle in software industry you can take 40-20-40 rule where 40 is all about preparation to design, 20 is construction, 40 is implementation. The way you distribute this depends on the life cycle to use. Along the years, if you take lot of project statistics using different approaches from more than 50 years long you will find it works. These are percentages on project duration. On the other side, my recommendation is taking a labor day with 6 hours of duration to estimate project duration. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Erica,
as most said, it depends on type, context and complexity.
In a projectized organization, which is doing same type of projects (e.g. SAP rollouts) in similar environments (industry), I have seen the PMO doing some analysis and coming up with distributions of durations and efforts for projects and which distributions correlated with success. This helped to identify outliers and deep dive to find out what is different.
Thomas Saving Changes...
Mark WarnerProject Manager| AURATucson, Az, United States
It's also important to note that the phases of a project typically overlap. For instance, on my last big project, we started the closeout phase about 2/3's of the way through the execution phase. We even held the final closeout review a full 6 months before completing the work. Every project will be different, but usually there is a lot of overlap and "fuzzy" lines between the phases. Saving Changes...
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