Learning the Five Phases of Project Management

Project Management:

A project is a temporary work carried out with a specific time period to meet the need of business. A Project Management is the procedural way of carrying out the project activities with well organised plan to achieve the goals or objectives. Various challenges and constraints will arise during the project should be handle in a appropriate way, so that progress of the project will not get affect. A proper project management procedures ensure the balance in the three constraints: Time, Cost and Resource.

Five Phases of Project Management

The five phases of Project Management are Initiation phase, Planning phase, Execution phase, Monitoring & Control phase and finally closing phase.

Initiation Phase:

In the Project Initiation phase, Project Team will be formed and assigned with responsibilities for each team member. Together the team will define the project scope and deliverable. Then project stakeholders will be identified and listed. Finally Project Charter will be prepared along with the details of "project name, start date, finish date, objectives, budget awarded, stakeholders name, project team members and their responsibilities, etc."  

Planning Phase:

It is the most important phase in the project management. Successful planning ensures the 80% success rate in the project completion. The requirements for executing the project will be identified in this stage. The detailed plan will be prepared in this phase with target dates for every activities and resources like Men, Machinery, Material and Money needed for execution will be planned carefully. Project running budget will be made and baseline will be set finally in this stage. 

Execution Phase:

In the execution phase of project management, project plan created in planning phase will be executed. During this phase, a product or service will be develop to match the client need. The construction will happen in this phase and deliver to the client at the end. It is the longest phase in project management. The progress will be made each and every day and the project execution team will ensure the timely completion of each activities and milestones. 

Monitoring & Control Phase:

During the execution phase, it is recommend to monitor the project happening and compare it with the baseline plan. Early and Late dates are carefully monitored and the changes are to  duly update in the schedule. Analysis like Earned Value, S-Curve, and Delay impact will be conduct to observe the issues in the execution and the project team will report and solve the issues to control the project progress. Cost control will be carried out to check the cost incurring as per the original spending plan. Quality audits will be conduct periodically to ensure the quality at each deliverables.

Closing Phase:

It involves the handling the project deliverables to the client / customer. Evaluation will be conduct to check the quality of the deliverables. All the project agreements like project contract agreement, supplier contract, labor contracts, bank loans, stakeholder agreements will be duly closed. Project findings like achievements, failures, project risk, project issues, difficulties faced will be recorded for future reference and study. 

Studying project managements tools like Primavera & Microsoft project helps to execute these five phases smoothly.

Primavera Training in Chennai | MS Project Training in Chennai

What is "Project Float" in Project Scheduling?

PROJECT FLOAT:

Float in the project schedule also referred as "slack". A Float is the value by which the duration of the activity can be extended without doing harm to the following.

• Start date of Succeeding critical activity.
• Project target date.

Project Float usually comes to a non-critical activities and non-constraint activities after scheduling the project. Generally float means "Flexibility". Float creates the flexibility inside the project schedule. If the project having "zero project float", then the project is very risky project. In other words, project dates are not flexible. If the activities having "zero float", it's called as Critical activities. Project Float will be calculated with the help of Critical Path Method.

Project Float falls into two categories by default. 

1. Total Float
2. Free Float

Total Float: 

The maximum number of days we can extent a non-critical activities without causing delay to the project end date.

Free Float:

The maximum number of days we can extend a non-critical activities without causing delay to the start date of immediate succeeding critical activities.

UTILIZATION OF FLOAT IN PROJECTS:

• If the critical activity got delayed while executing the schedule, we can mobilize the similar resources working in parallel non-critical activity to delayed critical activity by pausing the activity within the float value to speed-up the progress of critical activity.
• Sometimes the negative float may pop-up while scheduling due to the poor relationships or not matching the client target date. To overcome the negative floats, resources from positive float activities can be utilized.
• When complex situations arises in the project execution, where we want to reduce the project duration significantly, locate the zero float activities and then convert those float into positive float by reducing duration of those activities.

Today, most advanced tools like Primavera P6 helps to schedule the project without any hassle and the tools will calculate the float values for all activities automatically. Learn critical path methodology in Primavera Training in Chennai or Microsoft Project Training in Chennai along with the other project management concepts.

Project Scheduling and its Importance

PROJECT SCHEDULING:

Schedule, in Project Management, is the sequence of activities, milestones and project deliverables with series of start and end dates connected in a logical way. 

Why Project scheduling is more important?

• A project with an unrealistic schedule affects the project during the execution stage. A project manager who approved this unrealistic schedule has to face lots of problems during resource allocation, budget estimation, monitoring and controlling the project. 
• A realistic project schedule helps to develop an effective financial plan for a project. With the help of the project schedule, you can prevent last-minute procurement of materials which results in cost overrun.
• The project schedule helps to develop the procurement plan so that the procurement team can negotiate with the suppliers for procuring the materials at a low cost. Also, it helps to deliver the materials on time to the execution site.
• A schedule integrates the scope, work packages, activities, resources, risks and cost. Thus a perfect project schedule creates the project execution module with better communication and execution strategies.
• Blindspots and bottlenecks can be easily identified with help of a project schedule. The issues will be identified and resolved easily so that delays and cost over-run can be prevented.
• A perfect schedule helps to control the scope of the project and its deliverables. Each deliverable is provided with target dates which helps the execution team to understand their objectives and execute them without hassle.
• Dynamic project scheduling with aid of CPM and PERT helps to identify the delay and its in the project end date. Dynamic schedules will conduct the delay impact analysis to find out the project duration after the delay. 
• Baseline schedules help to compare the project present schedule with the original schedule. This baseline comparison provides detailed information about the differences between the two schedules and helps us to understand the conflicts clearly. 

Today, Project scheduling tools like Oracle's Primavera P6 project management and MS Project are widely used to schedule the project in a perfect manner. 

Primavera Training in Chennai | MS Project Training in Chennai 

Importance of learning Primavera P6 software

Primavera P6:

Primavera, a project management software was first launched into the market by Primavera Systems Inc. in 1983. Later in 2008, it was acquired by Oracle corporation. Since the launch, Primavera project management software was the leader among other PM tools. Here is the list of Importance in learning Primavera P6 software in this competitive world.

Importance of learning Primavera P6 Software:

• Career Growth - Acquiring complete knowledge in Primavera software enhance career opportunities for engineers and managers. Also, it increases the chances of survival in today's competitive world.
• Reduces Complexity - Primavera helps the project manager and planning engineers to reduce the large projects into smaller projects or work packages for better handling and monitoring with accurate details.
• Strengthen Communication: Earlier while executing the project, it was difficult to communicate between the corporate office and worksite. Primavera made it easier with the connected web servers through which planners, engineers, managers, stakeholders were able to communicate with each other without loss of information.

• Progress Tracking - On-time Tracking feature in Primavera helps the project control team to track the current progress to ensure the execution happening as per the baseline and projected budget. 
• Managing Resources - The resource database in Primavera helps to stockpile all the resource data like resource price, working time etc. It helps the management to handle and allocate the resource inefficient way.
• Cost Control - With the help of Primavera P6 project management it is easier to estimate the working budget of the work packages and complete projects. Primavera ensures accuracy in the cost estimation and supports the cost control team.
• Easy user Interface - Primavera P6 tool ensures the planner and manager work with ease with the flexible and light user interface. Thus the people who are using Primavera feel comfortable with the layout of the features.

Statistics showing 80% of top engineering industries around the world using the Oracle Primavera P6 Professional Project Management tool to handle complex projects and production. Getting Primavera Training with complete project management concepts is much needed in this competitive work world. 

Primavera Training in Chennai | MS Project Training in Chennai