Project Life Cycles

Question 1

What are the benefits of life cycles?

Answer 1

Planning is easier as you only need to plan for the upcoming phase in detail
Early phase success reinforces stakeholder commitment
Opportunity to confirm ongoing investment in the project (decision gate)
Reduced financial risk
Lesson learned throughout

Question 2

What are the project life cycle stages?

Answer 2

Concept
Definition
Deployment
Transition

Question 3

What are the extended project life cycle stages?

Answer 3

Adoption
Benefits realisation
Operations

Question 4

What happens during concept stage?

Answer 4

Need, problem or opportunity is confirmed and investigated
Feasibility assessed
Output is the business case
Stakeholders are identified and initial engagement
Benefits identified
Initial costs etc

Question 5

What happens during the definition phase?

Answer 5

Preferred solution is further evaluated and optimised
Project management plan is produced
Deployment baseline is prepared
Resources required during next phase identified

Question 6

What happens during the deployment phase?

Answer 6

Deployment baseline is executed
Pm allocates work to teams
Checks progress against the plan
Pm will report to steering group and sponsor

Question 7

What happens during transition phase?

Answer 7

Users carry out acceptance testing
Can be quick or long

Question 8

What happens during adoption stage?

Answer 8

Deliverables are used to deliver outcomes and realise benefits
This is the responsibility of the users

Question 9

What is a linear project?

Answer 9

1. Planning
2. Doing
3. Deliverable

In phases. Linear is more planning whereas iterative isn’t. With linear there are outputs only available at the end but iterative is delivery throughout. Scope and quality is flexible in iterative and not in linear.

Question 10

What is flexible in iterative but not in linear?

Answer 10

Scope and quality

Question 11

What is iterative?

Answer 11

Less planning and sprints. Linear is broken down into phases based on delivery rather than time whereas iterative is sprints. Sees benefits immediately, prioritise easier, broken down into smaller chunks.

But does require a lot of day to day ownership, quality not always great. Time and cost are fixed but scope and quality is not.

Question 12

Why split projects into chunks or phases?

Answer 12

Improved management of risks
Planning is made easier

Question 13

What phases are there in the extended lifecycle but not on the project lifecycle?

Answer 13

Benefits realisation
Adoption
Operations