Sharyn HardyManaging Director| Hardy Gallagher AssociatesLowell, Ma, United States
Can you list the phases of any project (not the process groups) that you worked on? I want to give my students some real examples besides my own. Saving Changes...
Yasir IkramProject Manager| VX Studio Engineering ConsultancyDubai, United Arab Emirates
Hi Sharyn,
Below are the examples various phases involved in a typical construction project
A. Inception and Feasibility
A1. Business Case.
A2. Identify Stakeholders.
A3. Collecting Requirements
A4. Budgeting and Feasibility study
A5. Work Program establishment.
B Design Phase
B1. Pre Design
B2. Concept Design
B3. Detailed Design
B4. Authority Approvals
C. Tendering and Procurement phase (May overlap with B)
C1 . Float RFP to Potential Contractors.
C2. Bid evaluation.
C3.Contractor Appointment.
D. Execution phase
D1.Contractor Mobilization.
D2. Detailed work program.
D3.Engineering & Approvals
D4. Procurement
D5. Construction
E. Close Out
E1. Testing and Commissioning.
E2. Authority Clearance
E3. Final Connections
E4. Close out documentation.
E5.Handing Over.
Hope it helps.
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1 reply by Sharyn Hardy
Feb 03, 2023 3:35 PM
Sharyn Hardy
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Thanks for this detailed example
Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Sharyn,
PMI PMBoK Guide ed6 say there are 4 'generic' life cycle phases for projects, and they have nothing to do with process groups, as you say:
1. starting the project 2. organizing and planning 3. carrying out the work 4. ending the project
And there are many other more specific lifecycles and phases, e.g. for SAP rollout projects: 1. Preparation 2. business blueprint 3. realization 4. final preparation 5. Go-Live and support
Or for SW development, the SDLC phases 1. project planning 2. gathering requirements 3. design 4. coding or implementation 5. testing 6. deployment 7. maintenance
Lifecycles are company or industry-standard specific or product specific. They govern the work of the project team. Process groups are industry-agnostic and govern the work of the project manager.
Often they are based of Deming's Plan-Do-Study-Act.
A real life example is Boeing's problem solving model project phases:
0 - Contain the Problem
1 - Define & Describe the Problem or Opportunity
2 - Identify Root Causes
3 - Identify and Validate Proposed Solutions
4 - Implement the Solutions
5 - Sustain the Gains
Note that project execution is often not linear but instead has a lot of iteration. While implementing some solutions, you may identify new problems/opportunities. That can make describing the project phase difficult as some discrete deliverables will be at different maturity levels. This can be shown on an integrated schedule as a Tier 1 with an overall timeline, with smaller short-term focused efforts broken out on supporting Tier 2 schedules.
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2 replies by Aziz Azzam and Sharyn Hardy
Feb 03, 2023 2:57 PM
Aziz Azzam
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Agree. Implemented PDCA in a constantly changing project environment to notice incremental benefits and test the scenarios so that I can adjust things accordingly. It worked. Happy.
On a software development project, an example of phases would be:
1. Requirement analysis.
2. Detailed planning.
3. Product design.
4. Coding.
5. Testing.
6. Deployment on Production
7. Post-production review, and service maintenance. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
In my case, what I teach to my students is calling it as they want. Just I pointed out that the name is a key thing to engage stakeholders (as other things of course).
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1 reply by Sharyn Hardy
Feb 03, 2023 3:37 PM
Sharyn Hardy
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I teach that as well, but I have some international students that don't grasp the concept so having examples is helpful. Neither PMBOK nor the 3 textbooks I looked at have examples.
For software development and data projects: no phases. I generally aim for iterative / incremental / continuous delivery without any kind of phasing. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Since phases are also just timeboxes to structure the project lifecycle from start to end, sprints can be seen as phases. Saving Changes...
Hi Thomas, A phase is defined, in the main, by its objectives or by the kind of work being undertaken, as evidenced by your description of SDLC in this chat. A sprint is defined only by time. It seems to me the question here makes no sense if we interpret a phase to be a timebox like a week or a fortnight (how can we list them other than by saying 1,2,3 . . .) but perfect sense if we understand a phase to be defined by its activities or outcomes. That was what I had in mind when I said no phases. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Hi David,
yes, it depends on the definition of a phase, and there are many.
If we take PMBoK Guide 7th, a project phase is
'a collection of logically related project activities that culminates in the completion of one or more deliverables'.
For me that perfectly describes a sprint in Scrum. The deliverables need not be defined at the beginning of the project (that would be predictive).
As we know from other definitions, phases may be repetitive (e.g. any sinus curve), and project lifecycles can be iterative, for example the cyclical project lifecycle as described by Barry W. Boehm in 1988. This also fits to Scrum sprints. Saving Changes...
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