Subtitles of the Movie

If you've gone through Part 1 and Part 2 of this course series, then you've gone through the project life cycle, process groups, and knowledge areas quite thoroughly. Over the next three movies of this section, we will once again go through them for a light review and also provide a quick glimpse into the life of a project for those that haven't gone through the previous courses. The focus of this movie will be the project life cycle. Let's go ahead and dive right into a review. As you may know, a project contains what is called a project life cycle which literally refers to the life of a project. The actual definition is that the project life cycle defines the project from beginning to end, connected by various phases. Understanding project phases is important, so let's review phases in more detail. Project phases are what projects are divided into in order to manage them more effectively. Usually, phases define technical work, deliverables, who is involved, and monitoring an approval. A project may contain a various number of phases. It can vary by company, project size, and complexity even industry. So there is no set number of phases that a project may contain, although it's common to see standardization of phases. For example, a software development project commonly has a requirements phase, design, development, testing, and also an implementation phase. Another more generic group of phases includes initiation, planning, executing, and a closing phase. All the phases you see on this screen together encompass the project life cycle. Now, let's take a look inside of a phase. Within a phase, the project team utilizes the process groups, initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. Whether all of these process groups and processes within them are utilized simply depends on whether they are needed for that phase. The processes within the PMBOK Guide are meant to be utilized within project phases and also within a project overall. Here are a few more notes on project phases. There is a beginning, middle, and ending phase. They occur sequentially, as I mentioned a moment ago, there is no set number of phases that must occur within a project since it varies by project complexity, industry, and sometimes by company. A project may be divided into various types of phases depending on several factors such as the project itself, and as I just mentioned by industry. I pointed out an example grouping of project phases a moment ago which you see on your screen. And an important note often missed is that moving from one phase to the next is a formal process, just as is beginning a phase and closing it out. They are not occurrences that take place without acknowledgement and obtaining approval. What we just looked at was a snapshot and basic overview of the project life cycle. Let's continue dissecting the project life cycle by reviewing the five process groups shown at the bottom of the diagram in the next movie.