Project definition, Lifecycle and Elements

Dr. Araz Taheri - Architect / 15.08.2024

The term project is one of the most used words with enormous aspects depending on the context it places. In a general view any task people do can be considered as a project.  From a primitive experimental group task in a elementary school to construction of a seasonal villa in a seashore district to highway between two cities developing human settlements on the planet mars all are projects. All of these projects are important and should be done in a perfect way.

Projects can be considered from several aspects such as type, size, goal, effectiveness etc. in order to have better considerations in these aspects it is essential to meet the basics of term project such as definition, lifecycle and elements. There are how ever enormous explanations and approaches to these terms. As an example if we have a review of articles related to project and project management we will see that there are various definitions for the term project depending on the project and the point where a definition provider stands interestingly all are same in concept. in this article which is provided for persons involved in projects with simpler structure or are agents of companies with simpler organizations, we are going to have a very simple review of the project issue.

In a professional approach, a project is a sequence of unique, complex, and connected activities that have one goal or purpose and must be completed by a specific time, within budget, and according to specifications (1).

As stated in the Project Management Handbook, a project is defined as a one-off initiative that extends across departments, has a limited time frame, is focused on a specific objective, is interdisciplinary, and is so important, critical, and urgent that it cannot be easily managed by the existing line organization. Instead, it requires special organizational measures (2). According to this definition, non-projects include one-off special orders that can be fulfilled by one person (i.e., without a project organization) and processes such as learning processes and change processes (2).

Neil G. Siegel, in his book "Engineering Project Management," mentions that a project is a deliberately undertaken endeavor to create something believed to be of value. This desired result might be a tangible artifact ("product") or a service. It might be intended for personal use or for sale (3).

It is important to note the difference between a project and its final output. The final output can be a new product, a new facility, an ICT system, a new organization, a collection of documents, or any other tangible or intangible end product. A project consists of a series of activities and tasks that:

  • Have a specific objective or goal to be completed within certain specifications
  • Have defined start and end dates
  • Have funding limits (if applicable)
  • Consume human and nonhuman resources (money, people, equipment)
  • Are multifunctional (cut across several functional lines) (4)

A simple question may come to mind: by whom, how, and when does a project come to the table? The answer is straightforward: a project is created when a person or organization—usually referred to as the customer or client—needs to create a product or service and pays for it (3).

This marks the beginning of a project, which must be completed by a specified date. The project is considered complete when the new product or service has been created and is ready for operation (3). The steps typically undertaken to start, perform, and complete a project are collectively called the life cycle or life span of a project (3). These steps include various simple, unique, or complex activities depending on the type and size of the project at each stage (1).

In each stage of the project life cycle, a mixture of activities is performed. While every project may have its own life cycle with slight variations and changes in nomenclature, the general intent is usually very similar to the life cycle shown in the following illustration of an engineering project (3).

 

Projects have a specified completion date, but there are different views on what constitutes the completion or ending date of a project. This date can be self-imposed by management or externally specified by a client or government agency. The deadline is beyond the control of anyone working on the project. The project is considered over on the specified completion date, whether or not the project work has been completed (1).

As shown in the illustration, there is an additional step called "disposal" in the sample engineering project lifecycle. It is necessary to develop more detailed life cycle models for each project category and sub-category. In these detailed models, the generic phases are broken down to include sub-phases that accommodate each specific project's category, size, scope, degree of innovation, complexity, and risk (4).

It is also a good idea to define the individual phases, their significance, the roles and responsibilities required for each, and the clear intent of each phase before project kick-off or planning (1). In other words, a well-documented project life cycle model enables us to apply systems thinking to creating, planning, authorizing, scheduling, and managing the project through all its phases. This approach helps in evaluating both the success and the value of the project and the results or products it has produced (4).

to constitute a project and complete the project lifecycle, many elements should come together. Each of these elements is important and it seems a project cannot be imagined without even one of them. These elements which are placed in various places of a project lifecycle are objective or goal, scope, quality, knowledge, financial resource, teams and workforce, tasks, final product and items related to time including start date and end date. Within a project lifecycle There are various dependency level between these elements and change in one of them will affect others too and they need to be managed properly. In this point another element is added to these series of elements as “project management” which it can be said that is an inseparable from the project concept. In the project management field there is an important point of view that the clear definition of the project, projects lifecycle and the elements of any project will lead the project to a better and more efficient way of reaching to the goals. (4)(5)

EXPOB Team's Perspective: unity of diversity, from intangibles to tangibles

Writing about project as a incredibly vast topic is very difficult. Writer cannot focus on 1 issue because all issues should be considered together and cannot mention all issues because the article should change into some books! Also when we are in the age of speed and the aim is making issues more shorter and simpler for audience with less time to study the task comes to be challenging!!! Specially when we are in our first step and preparing our first article. But the objective of the EXPOB team in order to use any type of possibilities and abilities to share and spread the knowledge of project management makes us more ambitious in our way.

Project term with its complex and vast nature is an issue that most of people are involved and perform it every day not only in their jobs but also in their whole life. May be Most of the people in small or medium sized construction, industry, mining or software projects are not triggered in the theroic aspect of project but they have a proper performance in their jobs. But the daily routines may cause many issues weak and can make obstacles in order to improve the abilities of people. As the EXPOB team we believe that with making the issues related to project and project management simple and bring them to peoples table every body can make improvements only by simple reviews. In this article we started our first writing task with providing a definitions of project, project life cyle and project elements. Because as mentioned in reference resources defining these elements even in mind can have very positive effects in peoples performance and projects outcomes. In this context we are going to focus on project elements because this place are more complex. In providing definitions to these elements we can divide the these elements into groups. These groupings can be done in various ways by different persons, but in a simple way we divide them to two main group as; intangible and tangible elements.

Intangible project elements:

objective or goal, scope, quality, knowledge, items related to time including life-cycle, start and end dates and project management

tangible project elements:

financial resource (money), teams and workforce (client, manager, designer, controller, executer etc.), tasks, final product (intangible service or tangible product)

In the illustration provided we compare a construction and software projects with their lifecycle and intangible and tangible elements.

Conclusion and Call to Action

According to our review we can say that almost all of us are involved in certain projects in our life, whether our own project or projects of other people. We think that various people can have interesting and crucial point of view bout The definitions provided in this article and the grouping of projects elements. We are pleased to receive the reader’s opinion about these issues and how they evaluate project definition, project lifecycle and project elements about their own projects or projects they are involved by providing their role on the project.

Thank you for your reading

 

1.Effective Project Management; Traditional, Agile, Extreme, By Robert K. Wysocki · 2011

2. Project Management Handbook, By Jürg Kuster, Eugen Huber, Robert Lippmann, Alphons Schmid, Emil Schneider, Urs Witschi, Roger Wüst · 2015

3.Engineering Project Management, By Neil G. Siegel · 2019

4. Project Life Cycle Economics: Cost Estimation, Management and Effectiveness in Construction Projects By Massimo Pica, Francesca Montanari · 2015

5.Utilizing a project profile matrix to determine project management requirements, Conference Paper. 13 October 2009