The Project Life Cycle and Initial Considerations GapFill

The project life cycle outlines the processes that should be followed when undertaking a project to give it the best chance of producing a product that meets as many of the client's requirements as possible.

The project life cycle consists of four stages...

Project initiation is the first phase, during which the requirements of the product, resources available and any  budgetsconstraintsprototypesrules are considered in order to determine whether or not the project should go ahead. The second stage of the project life cycle,   executionevaluationvisualisationplanning, is where the various tasks that need to be carried out will be determined (along with establishing suitable milestones) - and the designs for the product will be drawn up.  Execution is the third stage - this involves both production and  maintenancedeliverytestingdocumentation of the actual product.   VisualisationLimitationEvaluationInitiation is where the final product is released, the user documentation is created, and the success of the project is reviewed.

However, the project should not only be assessed at this final stage -   limitedassetconstraintiterative reviews should occur throughout the project life cycle. Each stage of the project life cycle requires some sort of  inputconstraintoutputtask list before it can begin, and produces an  outputinputconstrainttask list which is usually used by the next stage of the cycle.

During the initial stage of the project, you must consider the  constraintsuser contingenciesuser requirementsmilestones (the needs of the client, and what they want the final product to do), the  user requirementsuser contingenciesmilestonesconstraints (the restrictions on the product, such as its  prototypeasset logbudgettask list, that limit what the project is able to accomplish), and the potential  success criteriaopportunitiesrisksreviews facing the project and how to mitigate them. From this you can create  PERTSMARTSTARTprototype goals, objectives for the project that are: specific (clear and unambiguous);  milestonedtriggeredmeasurabletimed (have some way in which the success of the goal can be assessed); achievable (can actually be accomplished);  realisticriskyrequiredready (can be achieved when taking the project's limitations and resources into consideration); and can be accomplished in a reasonable time. These goals can then be assessed by creating  feasibility reportscontingenciessuccess criteriatask lists, which are used to determine whether or not the project has achieved what it intended to do.