Project Management

Project Management

Introduction

The topic about which this paper aims to talk about is project management life cycle. According to different project managers, practitioners, authors and scholars there are different stages of the project life cycle. They define different ways in which the life cycle of the project can be managed. For example, according to Manjeet Singh the life cycle of the project management consists of three main stages (Singh, 2008). The first stage is of initiating the project, then in the second phase the functions of planning, implementing and controlling take place and last there is the third stage of closing down the project (Singh, 2008). This same idea about the project life cycle management is put forwarded by Jonathan Carr. Co authors Merrie Barron and Andrew R. Barron also discussed the same stages in their article (Carr, 2009; Barron and Barron, 2011). These stages are adequate for the effective and efficient implementation of the project management. But in my opinion there should be more stages in the life cycle of a project. The stages that are defined by the above authors in their articles I do agree with them but it requires certain changes and alteration. My own best description of the stages in the project life cycle is discussed in the part of discussion.

Discussion

In my opinion, there is a need to add one more stage before initiating the project. This stage is of analyzing. Before initiate a project there is immense need to perform the analysis of the situation in which project management is pursued. The analysis phase makes it clear for the project manager to have clear idea about why this project is undertaken. Moreover, as a result of the clear conception a project manager can also communicate with the employees that are working with the project manager in the work of the project management. When employees have clear objectives and purposes then they make an attempt to perform their task at its best. Besides that, as a result of the analysis a project manager would be aware of all the mistakes and wrong things that were there in the past which in turn allow the project manager to take corrective actions and actions through which he can minimize the all the errors and wrong things that were there in the past. After the analysis phase there should be a phase of initiating the project management. In this phase the manager should decide the team with which he wants to work and communicate the purpose of undertaking this project. The third phase would be of concept phase. In this phase, all the ideas should be gathered and necessary information should be gathered and shared. After the concept phase there should be a phase of planning. In this phase all the maps should be designed about the concepts that were developed in the previous stage. I feel that after planning and before implementation phase there should be a phase of review. In this phase a matching should be done ...