Post 5 - The Project Life Cycle

Now that we have moved past and described some important activities fulfilled through project management, I came across an interesting chapter in the PMBOK Guide that I thought to be suitable for this next post.

You may have asked yourself, like I did 'how are project activities organised or put together?'  I was able to discover answers to this through further reading. I was able to learn about something called a 'project phase'.

What is a Project Phase?

The real question should be, once the activities for a project have been defined, then how do they get processed?Do we execute each activity randomly or is there a set plan for organising them logically?

Well, I was relieved to find out that there was some organisation involved.  I learnt, It's a good idea to analyse activities and see how they can be grouped into smaller workable loads to make processes easier.

I believe that there's no better way than to group activities based on how logically related they are to each other in achieving a particular deliverable. These related grouped activities are called a 'project phase'.

Now that that's out the way, and we have a few different project phases consisting of different activities, how do we manage each of these phases? Is there some sort of logical ordering involved?

Well, this is where we introduce you to the 'project life cycle'

What is a Project Life Cycle?

A project life cycle is just that; a way of organising and moving through the different phases of a project.

In a more accurate definition, a project life cycle a series of phases that a project passes through from start to completion. The life cycle ensures that each phases of the project are completed.

What if a particular phase is incomplete?

This is where a 'phase gate' comes into play.

What is a Phase Gate?

A phase gate or control gate (there are a few different terms for this actually) is the review at the end of a particular phase to make a decision on whether to move onto the next phase or not. As you would have thought, the decision at each phase gate will of course be dependent on whether the activities of each phase have been completed sufficiently. 

If the progress is insufficient, then the project manager would decide on the necessary action to take. This decision could even be to repeat a particular phase or more.

As you can see, there's a lot involved in ensuring the project’s success. A thorough and regular analysis of the projects life cycle can indeed improve overall project performance.

Please feel free to add your thoughts or comments

Post 6 - A Project's Success

I thought in this post It would be a great idea to share with you an interesting part of project management came across.

As I continued my daily reading of the PMBOK Guide, I started becoming familiar with the project life cycle, processes/ activities, business cases and business needs in project management.

 However, I still had an important question, which I didn't have an answer to.

That question was ' How do we determine whether a project is successful'? 

Strangely enough, through my initial readings of the organisation and it's planned objectives, I remember thinking to myself, surely there are different stakeholders in a given project, so each one must have an intended outcome as well as his own idea of what the important success factor for the project is.

It was good that I continued reading as I was able to understand that project management acknowledges these varying stakeholders interests and I also found out how it deals with them.

I discovered that a project manager has to document clearly defined objectives of stakeholders in order to select the measurable ones that can he can then use to measure success. 

Undefined objectives leave room for questions of whether or not results have been produced.

It was interesting to come across some of the important questions a project manager along with the stakeholders should answer.

What does success look like for the project?

How will Success be measured?

What factors may impact success?

For me I can see where these answers and understanding agreements between project manager and stakeholders can play a vital role in avoiding later disagreements as to whether he result was achieved.

The above along with a proactive communication with the stakeholders and a good assessment of the project situation could help with the success of a project.

More importantly, I discovered that as long as the project remains aligned with the plan and strategic direction of the company, then it's likely to succeed.

The success will inevitably be measured through the analysis of the project delivery results.

Please feel free to add on to this any suggestions or comments

Post 7 - BRM - Benefits vs Value Difference

Just thought, I'd share an interesting difference I discovered between benefits and value.Although in general terms they may seem quite similar and be used interchangeably the BRM book gives a good definition of each and as follows:

A benefit is as a gain realized by the organization and beneficiaries through portfolio, program, or project outputs and resulting outcomes

These are some of the examples of a benefit: increasing sales, revenue, or profits or reducing time, cost, or effort. These benefits can be tangible or intangible, but they work better when they are

On the other hand;

Value is the net result of realized benefits less the cost of achieving these benefits. Value may be tangible or intangible

So in theory, the value is the final actual result of the benefit, after you've taken into account and deducted the costs.

Hope you understand the difference now.

Post 8 - Is product management relevant in the age of digital products?

I came across this interesting article discussion in CIO, of whether product management is relevant or not in our times; the age of digital products.

I thought it would be interesting to share the this article and get your views on the issue.

Is project management relevant in an age of digital products?


There were differing perspectives on this issue.

Some suggested that ' it might not technically require it, but product management is the most strategic way to approach potential projects and priorities in a business and user-centered way. They, also, said that once digital becomes the focus for the organization you're no longer talking about projects. '

On the other hand of the argument;

Others argued that 'the move to digital products requires integrations which tend to be projects, so project management should be considered too. For this reason, they consider project management as a subset of product management'

Read the full article here

Please feel free to share your opinions on this issue.

Post 9 - A Reflection on our 'Digital Transformations' Class

It was interesting going back through last week’s lecture to look at the topic of digital transformations. 

In all honesty, it was full of eye opening information and references on how far we've come in digital transformation and I personally realised how ungrateful I may have become being born into such technological advancements.

I'd like to point you to something; I myself may not have paid much attention to.

Do these brands look familiar? 

If so, then what do you think they have in common?

Also, how many of these services do you use daily?

Well, if you agree, the commonality between these services is that they are all huge brands that play a big role in our lives daily!

It's interesting because, growing up in this era makes it hard to believe that there was a point not too long ago that most of these companies didn't exist.

Funnily, enough, during the lecture, I remember asking myself to look back at how life was outside of their existence. 

Fortunately, I happen to be just about old enough to remember the life before some of these big transformations pushed us to where we are today.  

I asked myself, whether or not. a millennial could imagine how life would be if these big services weren't around?  I concluded that they most likely wouldn’t.

In any case, the interesting part of the discussion to me was whether or not these transformations were actually beneficial to us. 

So, are these transformations good?

It was quite thrilling to see some of the pros and cons of digital transformations.

I'd like to firstly point out that, I understand and deeply appreciate the great level of ease and convenience brought about by today's services.  

I can also personally relate to the convenience of being able to watch movies at the comfort of my house through Netflix. 

On the other hand, I also remember the days where I would wait for Blockbusters to open so I can rent out a movie. It was very inconvenient, but for some reason I remember the excitement level being a lot higher. This could've been due to the anticipation, or just the fact I was younger back then.

Moreover. A service like Uber is one I have used often in my travels. Especially when I travelled to new places and was worried about being ripped off It came in very handy.

To be fair, many of us have had a lot of personal experiences with most of these services. However, some of the important issues that I was made aware of in the lesson were, 

1 - The fact that there are a number of people who aren't too fond of the changes.

2 - There are issues of privacy which to me is a very big deal.

3- JOBS! Computers taking over! 

The third issue to me is one where I feel that a big line is being crossed. The question that I ask myself is ' at what cost do we replace humans with A.I and robots’?

Me personally, I feel that these transformations are good, as long as they're bringing about convenience and benefit to the people.

But I'll leave you with a final thought; ’what benefit is convenience when you are out of work?'

Please share your thoughts below on this topic.

Post 10 - When should you switch from Project to Program Management?

I came across an interesting Capterra article discussing when you know you need to switch from project to program management.




So, when should you switch to program management? 

Here are three reasons you might need to:

1. Your projects aren’t building off one another - For example; Lessons learned aren’t shared with other teams, surplus resources aren’t strategically reallocated, and follow-up projects aren’t planned.

2. Project resources aren’t shared -  For example; Project A is short-staffed and in danger of missing deadline, while Project B is over budget and over-staffed because of poor planning and lack of communication.

3. Individual project managers aren’t collaborating or supporting one another - For example; you have strong project managers who run their individual projects successfully, but you’re not meeting organisational goals because the projects aren’t aligned and teams aren’t sharing information with each other.

So, these are some interesting scenarios of when you might need to move from project to program management.

Read the full article here

Please share your views and comments below.

Post 11 - Interesting Digital Transformation Podcast

I came across this interesting podcast on digital transformation and thought it would be interesting to share it with you guys.

Beneficial digital transformation example:

In the podcast they mention an interesting example of a digital transformation helping to advance and change the way we deal with real life situations. This is the example of how Google glasses helped anaesthesiologists become more productive in that instead of sitting and waiting beside the doctor while he treats the patient, they are now able to go and serve other patients as they wait for information passed through Google glasses to tell them whether the doctor is finished or not.

Another example I came across in this podcast was the fact that at one point Microsoft would sell their office through the purchase of CD's and through the benefits of digital transformation, they were able to transform that system into a subscription one. This has made it easier and quicker for customers to get access to the software and in turn more profit for Microsoft.

There are also some other interesting examples of digital transformation given in this podcast.

Listen to the podcast in the link below.

https://www.pmi.org/learning/training-development/projectified-podcast/podcasts/digital-transformation-what-it-takes

Please share your thoughts below.