This might be a trick question since many professionals are not sure about the project life cycle, product life cycle, or project management life cycle.
I'm interested in hearing how you distinguish between Project Life Cycle and Project Management Life Cycle. The PMBOK Guide 5th ed. only uses the term "Project Management Life Cycle" once, using "Project Life Cycle" to discuss Predictive, Iterative, and Adaptive project life cycles throughout the guide.
If I were to distinguish between the two, it would simply be the addition of Monitoring and Controlling into the mix. Predictive project life cycles, that many of us have seen and experienced, can go from simple:
...even though they may contain the same work. Sometimes I think it's just a matter of preference.
Iterative and Adaptive life cycles use similar phases, with the difference being that the iterations have (hopefully) smaller scope, and most of the phases are repeated in each iteration. If I were to distinguish an Adaptive or Iterative Project Management Life Cycle, Monitoring and Controlling would not be iterative - it would be a wrapper around all of the iterations.
The Product life cycle is a different animal. Project management can intersect with the product multiple times during its lifecycle, and the product may go through multiple iterations of changes. Each change may represent a project, and each project life cycle, for the changes made to the product, can vary between predictive, iterative, and adaptive.
So, back to my original question. How do you distinguish between Project Life Cycle and Project Management Life Cycle? Saving Changes...
Ed Tsyitee JrConsultant | Consultant Tucson, Az, United States
I think that the PLC and the PMLC are one and the same. The PMLC may be more detailed and comprehensive as defined by the PMBOK where the PLC can be more fluid and adaptable (agile). Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
There are a big mistake in PMBOK that I have discussed with the PMBOK version 6 author team and I think it has been changed in version 6. Life cycle process are based on life cycle models and there are only two life cycle models: predictive and adaptative. Iterative is a life cycle process based on adaptative life cycle model. So, if you think into a pyramid the basemen is the quality model, over the quality model life cycle models are defined (you have only two: predictive and adaptative), over the life cycle models life cycle process are created (you have waterfall, iterative, incremental, etc), over the life cycle process method are created (SCRUM, SDLC, etc) and at the top you have tools (any type of tools) to support the methods. But depending on the market you are working you will find quit different life cycle process. And you have standards to support it. Just in case of software you have ISO 12207. My recommendation to know more about life cycles is to take a look to standards. On the other side, no matter the type of product you are creating there is one and only one product life cycle. About management, is about project governance. You can use quit different models. In my case, i created the process my actual company is using based on "stage gate" model. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
May 18, 2017 12:52 PM
Replying to Aaron Porter
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I'm interested in hearing how you distinguish between Project Life Cycle and Project Management Life Cycle. The PMBOK Guide 5th ed. only uses the term "Project Management Life Cycle" once, using "Project Life Cycle" to discuss Predictive, Iterative, and Adaptive project life cycles throughout the guide.
If I were to distinguish between the two, it would simply be the addition of Monitoring and Controlling into the mix. Predictive project life cycles, that many of us have seen and experienced, can go from simple:
...even though they may contain the same work. Sometimes I think it's just a matter of preference.
Iterative and Adaptive life cycles use similar phases, with the difference being that the iterations have (hopefully) smaller scope, and most of the phases are repeated in each iteration. If I were to distinguish an Adaptive or Iterative Project Management Life Cycle, Monitoring and Controlling would not be iterative - it would be a wrapper around all of the iterations.
The Product life cycle is a different animal. Project management can intersect with the product multiple times during its lifecycle, and the product may go through multiple iterations of changes. Each change may represent a project, and each project life cycle, for the changes made to the product, can vary between predictive, iterative, and adaptive.
So, back to my original question. How do you distinguish between Project Life Cycle and Project Management Life Cycle?
The term project management life cycle is not used much anymore. From the past, what i understood it to mean is that it was used to refer to the process groups.
Whereas the project life cycle is a function of the type of the project and industry Saving Changes...
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