Information Technology Project Life Cycle

Information Technology Project Life Cycle

The purpose of this work is to research the Information Technology, or IT project lifecycle and to identify the major project management tasks associated with the concept, development, implementation, and closeout phases of the project life cycle as well as listing the necessary project management skills necessary to accomplish those tasks.

The objective of "Life Cycle Management" (LCM) is the provision of a system that is quality-based within the financial range or limitations agreed upon in a timely manner that contains repeatable processes.

Life Cycle Management Phases:

The Life Cycle Management of an IT project is inclusive of five (5) major phases as follows:

Initiation Phase: Major activities in this phase are development of goals and objective as well as the approach while identifying the resources needed. At this point in time the description and feasibility of the project are addressed and a concept document created as well as the project charter identifying the skills and responsibilities of the management in the project. A feasibility study is performed in this phase of the project.

2. Planning Phase: The most important phase in the IT project this phase is inclusive of planning the structure of the work breakdown, performing a cost-benefit analysis, developing a resource plan and schedule. Risk, quality and communication planning are performed during this phase as well as the budgeting for the project. A "planning summary" is completed during this phase and is inclusive of the "key deliverables" which includes the work statement, requirements documentation, solutions and specification documentation along with the design schedules. The documents which detail the design are submitted along with the implementation plan.

3. Execution Phase: This phase witnesses the development of the IT project. Testing of the processes is accomplished through application of the processes or products operationally for the testing and approval of use by the customers of the organization. Documentation will include the operations manual being created and written, standards, systems outputs as well as reports of performance. The Project Administration, Contract Administration and Risk Management are the main activities during this phase with key deliverables being the development, testing, implementation and documentation.

4. Control Phase: This phase is the one in which maintaining the project within the "scope, cost, and schedule" as well as "within acceptable quality" is addressed due to the possible variables. "Unknown or unproven technologies....make these projects difficult for the project manager to baseline the scope, schedules, and costs during the Planning Phase." (Systems Lifecycle Development, 2001) Key deliverables in this phase are the development, testing, implementation and documentation of the scope control, schedule control, cost and quality control as well as the contract administration and configuration management in the project.

5. Closeout Phase: the final phase is characterized by the project being brought to an end with the manager of the project holding responsibility for making sure that the processes in closeout are accomplished while the systems are transitioned to maintenance perspective. The main activities in this phase are administration of closure of the project as well as financial closure as well as auditing of the project. Key deliverables are identified as "maintenance and "service level agreements."