Project management
- The project lifecycle
- Project documentation

Project management can be defined as a formal process that oversees the creation, scope, and completion of a project.
There are various project management methodologies and approaches, again similar to the software development lifecycle covered in previous modules.

Project Management Life Cycle

  • Project Management Life Cycle is a series of essential activities for accomplishing project objectives or targets.

  • It is a framework that includes the stages to transform an idea into reality.

  • Projects may have different dimensions and difficulty levels, but they can be mapped to the Project management life cycle structure, whatever the project’s size is.

4 Phase lifecycle

The Project Management Lifecycle process is divided into four main parts:

1. Initiation phase

2. Planning phase

3. Execution phase

4. Project Closure Phase

- Monitoring, Controlling Closure and Review

Initiation phase

  • Initiation phase defines those processes that are required to start a new project.

  • This phase mainly composed of two main activities

1. Prepare Project Charter and

2. Identify Stakeholders

  • All the information related to the project are entered in the Project Charter and Stakeholder Register.

Planning Phase

  • Project Planning phase covers about 50% of the whole process.

  • Planning phase determines the scope of the project as well as the objective of the project.

  • It begins with the outputs of initiation phase (charter, preliminary scope statement, and project manager).

  • The output of the planning phase serves as the input for the execution phase.

  • The important aspects of planning process are

1. Planning phase should not be executed before your initial planning is finished

2. Until the execution process does not start, you should not stop revising plans

  • Create Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

  • Plan Schedule Management

  • Define Activities

  • Sequence Activities

  • Estimate Activity Resources

  • Estimate Activity Durations

  • Develop Schedule

  • Control Schedule

Execution Phase

  • Consists of those activities that are defined in project management plan.

  • This process involves managing stakeholder expectations, coordinating with people and resources, as well as performing other activities related to project deliverables.

  • Direct and Manage Project Execution

- This stage consumes most of the project cost, time, and resources as this is the process that produce project deliverables.

  • Quality Assurance

- process of auditing the quality requirements and the results from quality control measurements. 

  • Acquiring Project Team

- Roles and responsibilities

- Project organization chart

- Staffing management plan

Execution Phase

  • Develop Project Team

- Human resource management plan

- Project staff assignments

- Resource calendars

  • Manage Project team

  • Manage Communications

  • Conduct Procurements

  • Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Monitoring and Controlling

  • Tracking, reviewing and regulating the progress in order to meet the objective of the project.

  • Ensures that the deliverables are according to the project management plan.

  • Identify any changes made from the point of project management plan to determine appropriate preventive action.

  • Perform Integrated Change Control

  • Validate Scope

  • Control Scope

  • Control Schedule

  • Control Cost

  • Control Quality

  • Control Communications

  • Control Risks

  • Control Procurements

  • Control Stakeholder Management

Closing Phase

  • Performs a controlled shut down of the project at the end.

  • Three closure activities:

1. Closure of the product

  • Getting the customer to accept the final deliverables, if the project is external

2. Closure of the project

  • This include formally closing of administrative procedures, updating project documents and archiving those databases & documents

3. Closure of the resource behind the project

  • The financial closure of the project, resources assigned to the project should be returned

Learning Activity 1

•Learners to:

- Work in your groups to think about the tasks and milestones required for the completion of the project (20 minutes).

- Write down the tasks and milestones identified using your chosen collaborative platform. Create a Gantt chart to document the time plan (40 minutes).

Project documentation

Motivate why paperwork is required.

Categories of paperwork corresponding to the phases of the lifecycle etc.

Learning Activity 2

•Learners to:

–Your team members, research and categorise what sort of project documentation are produced in general projects (30 minutes).

–In your team collaboration platform, write down the identified categories and note down any differences for projects which fall within the scope of computing and cyber security (60 minutes).

Project Management Articles (Additional Reading)

https://www.dummies.com/category/articles/project-management-34249/