Project life cycle: The 5 phases explained

What is the project life cycle?

The project life cycle is a five-phase framework project managers use to guide their projects to completion. It outlines all project stages, from inception to final implementation, and describes what the team must achieve during each phase. 

Below is a summary of the project life cycle phases and their primary objectives. 

1. Initiation: Define the project’s scope, cost, feasibility, goals, timeline, and success criteria. 
2. Planning: Create a project roadmap or detailed action plan that outlines the tasks needed to complete the project.
3. Execution: Carry out the work to complete the product, service, or result. Ensure your team has all the necessary resources, tools, and instructions. 
4. Monitoring and controlling: Monitor the progress and performance of your team and project to identify any deviations from the plan or quality issues so you can make changes accordingly.
5. Closure: Close the project, sign any outstanding contracts, pay vendors, conduct a post-project review, and identify how to improve next time. 

When project managers clearly understand the various project management phases, they can see the big picture and better understand how to handle each stage. By breaking the project down into more straightforward steps, it’s easier for project managers to anticipate what’s coming next, which helps them stay on track and ensure the project’s success. Using the right tools and methods contributes to effective team management throughout the project life cycle.

The 5 phases of a project life cycle

Understanding the five project management life cycle phases and their requirements will give you a repeatable, improvable framework for effective project management. 

Initiation phase

Planning phase

During the planning phase in the project life cycle, you create a roadmap for completing the project on time and in line with your success criteria, all without going over budget. 

In this stage, you’ll break your project into smaller tasks, set milestones and deadlines, and create detailed plans for resources, schedules, tools, and task assignments.

Below are some items you might create in the planning phase. 

• Project management plan: Specify the project phases and tasks. Create a work breakdown structure and Gantt chart to outline task dependencies and timelines. 
• Risk plan: Predict potential risks and create standard operating procedures for dealing with them, including who owns each issue. 
• Financial plan: Create and allocate a budget across teams and resource types. 
• Resource plan: Identify the team members you’ll need and assign roles. Use resource management software to centralize the documents, briefs, and other resources. 
• Communication plan: Choose which channel(s) you’ll use to communicate with your team and clients. Decide how frequently you’ll communicate and set up meetings on the calendar. 
• Quality plan: Establish KPIs and define how you’ll measure your team’s performance and outputs. 

With a project management tool such as Jira, it's easy to store these plans in a centralized, accessible location. You can also access project planning templates to streamline your efforts.

Execution phase

The project execution phase is where you implement the project plan and complete the project deliverables. 

As the project manager, you assign tasks, clarify roles, answer questions, oversee work, facilitate communication, attend briefings and meetings, support your team, and keep them on track. 

This might mean providing team members with new tools, materials, or resources. 

Teamwork can be a challenge for projects with multiple people and complex tasks. Companies frequently use collaboration software to help teams work together and minimize downtime. 

Jira provides end-to-end project execution management. The platform handles the day-to-day demands of executing complex projects, allowing teams to focus on delivering work rather than struggling with spreadsheets and disjointed tools.

With Jira, project managers can assign tasks, set deadlines, and automate reminders so nothing slips through the cracks. With all their work in one place, they can understand how each task impacts the timeline and budget, allowing immediate adjustments to keep the project moving forward.

Monitoring and controlling phase

In this phase, you’ll track project progress and make adjustments to ensure the project stays on track.

Collect information from timesheets, reports, and team members. Using Jira to manage your next project will help you track a project’s progress; with either the timeline view, which acts as a Gantt Chart, or the Kanban board, both make it easier to identify when things are off track against your project roadmap. 

As the project manager, your job is to restore order when issues arise—this is the controlling aspect of this phase. 

Here are some examples of hiccups you might have to manage.

• Timeline: If a team member can’t complete a task on time, you assign it to someone else. 
• Cost: A vendor cost is higher than anticipated, so you reduce the project scope. 
• Team: A disagreement has arisen between two team members, so you help them resolve it. 
• Quality: One part of the product is substandard, so you create a different approach for building it.
• Risk: An unforeseen risk emerges, and you need to mitigate it. 

The monitoring and controlling phase lasts throughout the project life cycle. Project managers constantly spot opportunities to perform better. 

You can integrate Confluence with tools like Jira to communicate your project’s progress across key stakeholders. Confluence keeps all project-related documentation in one place, allowing you to share updates, track changes, and collaborate in real-time with your team.

Closure phase

Projects have a defined end, unlike ongoing operations. This is the closure phase, where final tasks like delivering results, paying vendors, signing contracts, or ensuring proper storage and accessibility of documentation are completed. 

Project managers will also use this phase to evaluate team performance, allowing them to spot areas for improvement.

Here are some questions you might ask during the closure phase:

• Did everyone accomplish their tasks?
• Did communication ever break down?
• What talents and shortcomings did you find in each team member?

Present these findings to your team members in a post-project meeting. Encourage them to speak, share what went wrong, and voice their ideas about how to do better on similar projects. 

In addition to evaluating the team, assess the quality of your product.

• Is it up to the client’s standards?
• Did it solve the problem you set out to solve?
• Where did it underperform and overperform?

These questions will help you better understand your current ability to hit your goals. Qualitative and quantitative feedback is important. Run tests, send surveys, and get an accurate depiction of your creation’s performance. 

Confluence is a valuable tool for documenting this entire process. With Confluence, you can easily store, share, and reflect on project outcomes, lessons learned, and team feedback, creating a centralized knowledge base for future projects.

Types of project life cycles

There are three variations of the project life cycle: Agile, Waterfall, and iterative.

Agile model

The Agile model emphasizes flexibility and iterative progress. It allows for adjustments and improvements throughout the project. Teams adapt incrementally based on constant feedback. 

Agile is popular among software developer teams who rely on constant back-and-forth collaboration and regularly encounter unforeseen obstacles. 

Two Agile frameworks you can consider are Kanban and Scrum. Kanban involves visualizing tasks, limiting work in progress, and ensuring a continuous flow of work, making it ideal for projects requiring flexibility without strict deadlines. Scrum operates in time-boxed sprints, with set goals and regular reviews, promoting structured iterations and team accountability.

Waterfall model

The Waterfall methodology follows a linear sequential flow, with each phase dependent on the deliverables of the prior ones. Unlike Agile, it’s not an iterative process.

Examples of project types that often follow the Waterfall model include manufacturing, construction, and healthcare projects.

Iterative model

The Iterative model involves repeating cycles to refine the project through feedback and multiple iterations.

It’s slightly different from the Agile model in that feedback usually occurs at the end of a milestone. In Agile, feedback is more continuous and frequent. 

Why is project life cycle management important?

Effective project life cycle management streamlines processes in several ways.

• Improved project visibility: Teams can proactively remove obstacles to ensure timely, high-quality results, enabling more effective decision-making.
• Better risk management: Teams can spot risks early and find solutions. Regular risk checks ensure projects stay on time and avoid costly delays or failures.
• Enhanced stakeholder communication: With regular updates, progress reports, and meetings, participants stay more informed and involved throughout the project life cycle.

Project managers can use Jira tools to organize and prioritize ideas. This makes it easy to create and share custom roadmaps with the team.

• Jira breaks large projects into manageable tasks, tracks progress, and encourages teamwork across the company.
• Jira Product Discovery works with Jira, providing context and visibility into software development projects, business tasks, and more.

Challenges of project life cycle management

Project management can be complex and challenging. It requires careful attention to potential obstacles, including scope creep, resource constraints, and communication breakdowns.

Scope creep happens when project requirements expand beyond what the team decided at the start of the project, which can lead to insufficient resources, delays, and deviations from the project plan. Change control processes help eliminate scope creep. Project managers must check the project's scope often, communicate changes, and involve stakeholders to ensure any changes match the project goals.

Resource constraints can cause delays, jeopardizing successful project completion. To overcome resource issues, check your resources early in project planning. Create a backup plan to find potential problems and think of solutions, such as getting outside help or shifting your resources.

Communication breakdowns can cause productivity to suffer. These can include insufficient communication, disagreements, and poor collaboration. Creating a culture where people are happy to share information within the project team and holding regular meetings, both formal and casual, can keep everyone on the same page and prevent communication breakdowns. Project management tools, such as Jira, simplify communication, track progress, and streamline information sharing.

Below are some proven techniques for mastering project life cycle management:

• Implement clear milestones. Break down your project into milestones with deadlines. This makes your project feel more achievable and allows you to track its progress more effectively. 
• Communicate regularly. Meet with team members regularly to discuss progress, discover bottlenecks, and source new ideas. 
• Involve stakeholders. Draw stakeholders into the process by asking for feedback, giving them updates, and clarifying their requests to ensure the team meets all expectations. 

Keep a close eye on task progress, and make it easy for your team members to do the same. This avoids missed deadlines and work falling through the cracks.

This is where a tool such as Jira Boards comes in handy. 

Jira’s Kanban Boards help you plan, visualize, and track your work. They provide you and your team with a shared overview of all your tasks and their status. Team members can easily move their tasks into the right stage, keeping everyone in the loop.

Use Jira for effective project life cycle management