How to manage a project successfully

When you’re looking for an answer on how to manage a project, what you’re actually looking for is a project framework which can help as a guide throughout the project life-cycle, which is the series of stages your project goes through to get from start to finish.

As such, one of the biggest keys to successful project management is to have a good understanding of the project life cycle. You need to know what goes on in each phase of the project life-cycle, how the different phases interact with each other, and what your role as a project manager is in each phase.

How to manage a project with the 5 basic phases of project management

While there are a few variants of the project-lifecycle framework, most of them cover the same five basic phases:

1. Initiation: Which is the step where you define scope, cost, feasibility, goals, timeline, and define what success looks like.
2. Planning: In this step you create a project plan and detail an action plan that includes specific tasks needed to complete the project.
3. Execution: This is where work is carried out to create the project deliverables.
4. Monitoring and controlling: In this step you monitor the progress and performance of your team and project, identify deviations to the project plan and make changes to get your project over the finish line.
5. Completion: In the final stage of the project you pay vendors, conduct post-project reviews and document areas that need improvement for next time.

When you have a clear understanding of the different phases, the question of how to manage a project successfully becomes much easier.

Phase 1: Project initiation

When Aristotle first introduced the aphorism ‘well begun is halfway done’ in Politics, he wasn’t really writing about how to manage a project successfully, but that doesn’t change the fact that the saying fits project management like a glove. 

This is because so much hinges on the success of the first step when it comes to project management.

The initiation phase in project management includes creating a business case, defining the project scope, estimating the timeline, reviewing available resources, drawing up a list of stakeholders and defining budget and tools necessary to complete the project.

Things you should consider in the initiation phase:

• How will you measure KPIs during the project
• Who will be involved in approving the deliverables
• What project management tools your team needs.

Phase 2: Project planning

While it sounds like a bad project management joke, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein may have been on to something when he said “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”

And while there’s an almost 100% guarantee that you will need to adjust your plans when we’re talking project management, having a clear plan with specified details makes it a lot easier to adjust if things go awry, if you want to make sure you’ll still make your deadline.

The planning phase in project management includes creating the project plan with specified details, steps broken into actionable tasks, an overview of milestones so you can monitor progress, and documented processes.

Things you should consider in the planning phase:

• How much time each team member has to work on the project
• How each task plays into the project as a whole
• How you will assign tasks to team members
• How you will manage approval from any external stakeholders.

Phase 3: Execution

According to former Walmart CEO, Mike Duke, even the best strategy is useless if you don’t have the people to execute it.

So while most guides on project management focus on how to begin a project to achieve success, your job as a project manager will in no way become easy or smooth when you get to the execution.

During the execution phase you will be allocating resources, building the processes for production teams to follow, and meeting with the teams to fix issues as they arise. 

Phase 4: Monitoring and controlling

While it is often mentioned as a separate phase in the project management life-cycle, monitoring and controlling often overlaps with the execution phase in a way that can make the two seem like one phase.

However, monitoring and controlling consists of tracking effort and cost distribution, monitoring project progress in between meetings with the production teams, ensuring that everyone is following the plan that’s been set out and preventing any potential disruptions (preferably before they arise).

Things you should consider in the monitoring and control phase:

• If production teams have the tools they need to succeed
• If any bottlenecks are coming up during production that need to be opened up.

Phase 5: Completion

For the employees involved in creating the project deliverables the closing phase is rarely mentioned, but as a project manager the closing phase is crucial to the success of your future projects both on a personal and a company wide level.

During the completion phase of a project you will be managing deliverable reviews, approval and handover, get the results approved by superiors or clients and document learnings that can be used to optimize your processes in the future.