Enjoy this third video of my free online PMP Exam Preparation training course and prepare to sit and pass the PMP certification exam from PMI. This PMP training video is based on PMBOK6 (PMBOK Guide) and covers Project & Product Lifecycles, Phases, Phase Gate Reviews.
Hello and welcome back to my PMP series this is the third video in the series today we’ll talk about project life cycles product life cycles we’ll talk about the phases phase gate reviews we’ll introduce the five process groups and the ten knowledge areas along with a couple of other things towards the end so let’s get started with the project lifecycle the project lifecycle is is is this pan of time that it takes to from when you start the project all the way to when the project ends so we as humans for example we have our own life cycles we are born on a certain day that’s a birthday then we go through different stages in our life from being you know a baby infant toddler a child you know a teen and then an adult and you know a parent and so on so these are the phases that we have and in a project likewise there are phases and these phases can have like some relevant outcome or can represent a significant portion of the whole project so let’s just imagine that the whole project is made off back-to-back phases so as you see here in this chart as you see in the chart let me just start the marker here you’ll see here that we we have a let’s say this was the beginning of the project it’s going to go through several phases for example inception elaboration construction transition that will be the case with a construction project and at the end of transition here would be the the delivery date will be the end of the project so that’s that’s the span of the project lifecycle beginning to end so we see that in that life cycle there’s going to be phases a phase is a significant portion of the project and it represents an achievement and accomplishment or something that is you know of importance to the organization it represents that a piece technical piece has been completed from that project so in this case here that you’re looking at this is a construction example but if this was let’s say your project was a research project then identifying for example the sources of information could be for example one phase another phase would be to put together a team and then another phase after that would be to let’s say go and collect a research information and then another phase would be to analyze that information and the final phase would be to put together your research report so phases or pieces of the project and once you’ve completed all the phases then the project lifecycle would have completed the phases themselves can be sequential as in back-to-back like this example here that you see these are all back-to-back phases they can also be iterative in the sense that they can or like repeat different phases so you do one piece of it so it’s an iteration so you do one iteration or one round then you go and do another round then a third round and these could be kind of like similar type activities and you know having incremental benefits to the organization they could also be overlapping as shown in this example here where you will see that the analysis phase here did not complete but design started already and design did not complete but then the next one started and so on so you see that there is some form of overlap in these areas and that’s called overlapping phases project life cycles can be predictive and the term that where a lot of people are familiar with is the waterfall Waterfall planning method when you do waterfall planning your plan everything in advance so you know exactly where you’re headed let me show you here on let me put a whiteboard here if you were planning something in waterfall let me pull this up you would plan the whole project beginning to M so this is your beginning this is your end and you’ll plan out all the phases in advance you know exactly what you’re going to be doing and at every stage at the end you know at some point you do a stage review another one here another one here and you make a decision or determination to go forward with the project or the project is completed at the end this is the waterfall model and it we tend to know just about everything about the project and we we know what exactly we need to plan and this would be common of you know construction projects or construction as in roads bridges homes we tend to know everything in advance and we can plan pretty much all aspects of the project granted there’ll be some surprises along the way but we pretty much can plan the project now going to the other one there so that that one is the waterfall this one here and the next one is the agile so waterfall is associated with predictive life cycles because waterfall model can predict the whole plan in advance granted there will be changes the agile approach here the second one is called adaptive also and the reason it’s called adaptive is that we’re adapting as we go so instead of planning everything in advance this is what we do we do we let me just get rid of that one first oops Oh erase that so this is what we do we plan one phase right and at the end of that phase and that phase would have you know a back there backlog of features so there’s a backlog that we work with and in that backlog we have several features that were aiming to complete and we would go and bundle a few of these features put them in that one phase or we call that a sprint and that usually is around two weeks two weeks nine ten to ten business days essentially and within those two weeks we complete specific activities or functions that we’re trying to get and at the end of it we at the end of it we review the outcome with the management and if they’re happy with the outcome they give us the go-ahead would to start with the next phase or next sprint of that project in the next phase of Sprint we go and select their from the remaining backlog additional features that will need to be complicated in the next two weeks in the meantime additional items will be added to the backlog or usually you don’t start with four items in your backlog you probably have tons of items maybe 50 or 25 or so and in each iteration or in each sprint here that is about two weeks long we’re going to complete that and hand it over to management so I had every face that you see here there’s going to be incremental benefits that come to management right so from at the end of this from the remaining items here we can go and formulate a new sprint for another two weeks and work on it and complete it with every face we’re completing something of incremental value to the organization and that’s how we do the agile planning we work with a backlog of features and in every sprint we complete some piece of that review with it management and you know there’s heavy amount of communication that happens and at some point at the very end the projects is done so that’s how the agile methodology works or agile model and it has been proven recently that the agile methodology is producing better results that’s because it requires less changes if we go back to the example that I was showing you these Sprint’s that were running here they are in they’re very short plan so there’s very little that we need to change and every one of these and so we say that although we are guided by the outcome of one and we’re mostly changed driven because we look at the outcome of one and we decide which way to go and we can change and adapt as we go this way they call it adaptive there is very little that we would have to change inside that sprint is very little that we have to change in there so minimal changes in that two-week run so that’s why that agile model is preferred and especially in the world of IT it has been proven to be highly effective ok within the life cycle there’s typically one or more phases that are associated with development of that product so we mentioned that the project is made of several phases that would have to complete and that would make up the whole life cycle every phase completes one piece or develops one piece of the product of your project so we refer to that as a development lifecycle the development life cycle can be a predictive can also be adaptive as we discussed but can also have a hybrid model where it’s a mixture of more than one and can also be in between which is interim the iterative here incremental so iterative and incremental so predictive is where you know all in advance and can plan for it adaptive is adapt as you go you could have a mixture where this friends or you know instead of having two weeks you could have a longer sprint and so that kind of gives it more of a plan so if you plan let’s say a month ahead of time then you’re kind of doing a hybrid model it is also possible that an organization starts with a predictive and then eventually changes to an adaptive model because they feel it works better a trace iterative and incremental would be discussed on the next few pages so we discussed predictive already which is also called waterfall iterative means we’re doing this we’re doing the scope of the project in small iterations right what we we we deliver the project scope we understand it in advance and we we in advance early on in the project lifecycle right and then as we complete every iteration right we adjust our estimates time and cost estimates are routinely modified as we get to know more about the project similar to what they refer to as the rolling wave planning where at the end of every wave or phase we adjust the time and money estimates and then as the next wave is completed then we do the same thing we adjust the Inc dollar and time estimates and then another wave comes in so these waves represent phases of the project that’s iterative life cycle incremental life cycle is similar to iterative life cycle we are delivering small incremental benefits as we complete every iteration of the project adaptive we have discussed previously and that’s the one that we call agile it could also be called iterative and incremental so these terms themselves kind of like overlap and they’re interchangeable most of the time but the two most common would be predictive and adaptive so the detail scope in adaptive is defined and approved before the start of the project and as I mentioned we work with backlogs that we complete with every sprint of that life cycle a hybrid life cycle would mix predictive and adaptive most of the time by lengthening the period of the Sprint and rather than doing it for two weeks then we’re going to it may be from month or so and that gives it a sense of longer-term planning all right besides the project life cycle there’s also the product life cycle so the product life cycle is is the life of the product that we’re making from the project’s so if you think about let’s say the iPhone now if you think about an iPhone and you think about where it started probably started with I believe version 3 the iPhone right when that product was rolled out version 3 it had specific features I think the first one didn’t even have Wi-Fi and eventually it started to have Wi-Fi so the we can see that the first iPhone was developed and then the product was introduced and obviously it was accepted and then now the growth and the maturity will happen over a period of time in the growth and mature maturity period you will see multiple iPhone releases happens so we have iPhone 3 we have four five six seven and then you know maybe eight and then X and so on so with every release of this one product we are becoming more and more mature and more widely adopted and with time it we get to a point where the product is in just about everybody’s hand that is going to buy it and it becomes diluted in the market everybody has it and so it hits the peak of maturity where we cannot really advanced it anymore and almost everybody’s got that product and people start to lose interest at that point and that’s where you see that decline happening here and that’s when a company needs to think about what to do with this specific product do they want to continue this do they want to transform it you know if they were still transforming there would be in this range but when you hit the peak of maturity that’s when you know you can’t advance it anymore think about VCRs you know we don’t have them anymore cassette players we don’t have them anymore they don’t make them anymore and it’s not really meaningful to make it anymore so at some point products do decline in acceptance and at some point a call is made to end the life of that product and no longer produce it so this whole lifespan from the day we conceived right from from the day the concept is thought about the day we divest from this one product that’s called the product lifecycle okay now one thing to note about product life cycles is that within that product lifecycle there’s going to be multiple project life cycles remember the example of the iPhone with every release of the iPhone a project is started if you’re going to enhance anything about the project about the iPhone a project is started so from the day that you start from the day you conceived this product to the day that you no longer no longer invest in it there’s going to be several projects that you’re going to run some will overlap some will not but many enhancements happen along the way and so these are project life cycles that happen within the span of that product life cycle so project life cycles for the product are typically smaller than the product life cycle the life cycle itself we mentioned phases before and we mentioned that projects are typically broken down into phases and every phase represents something significant to the organization culminates in the completion of one or more deliverables and what you see here is a software development life cycle SDLC project with different phases definition requirements definition or gathering system requirements definition analysis and so on till the very end where they deliver the product so these are these represent the phases and every one of these phases is going to have a name a number a duration and its own resource requirements and entrance and exit criteria in between when you say I’m complete I’ve completed this one phase typically in the middle of this day to a stage gate review where they check that all the requirements of that phase have been satisfied taking a look at this one view here the phase gate reviews that’s what I was just talking about this is the intention here is to make sure that all as well sometimes we call this a stage gate review sometimes we call it a kill point phase entrance a phase exit so I have two phases here all right and as I go in this is what we call the phase entrance and going out of here is the phase exit and in between what we do is we do a stage gate review we make sure that all the requirements that were intended for the phase have been delivered and if we feel at any one point that this project is not feasible cannot be completed then at that point we may go ahead and kill this project and no longer run it so this is called a kill point also because I mean the phase gate review is called a kill point in some instances because that’s the point if you’re going to kill a project that would be the best time to actually kill the project that brings us to the end of this session I hope it was informative if you like what you’re hearing I would like to request that you subscribe and turn your notification on if you think this would help somebody else please feel free to share sharing is caring but subscribe turn your notification on so that we can let you know when the next video is released thank you and I look forward to talking to you on the next video
