Project Management Standards, Framework and Methodology:

Framework provides the broad guidelines to perform a particular task or a project. One can choose its own tools and techniques under a framework. For example the discipline of Project Management is a Framework that provides high level guidelines on how to manage projects. All project management standards are fall under this framework, as for specialization, you must choose a project management mba.

How to Start a Project?

You can consider the cricket framework that provides guidelines on a cricket team like: a team has 11 players in the ground, 1 wicket keeper and a skipper. Now every cricket playing nation has their own standards under this framework, Like England might prefer to play with 4 specialist batsman, 4 bowlers and two all-rounders. Sri Lanka might play with 5 specialist batsman 3 specialist bowlers and three all-rounders. So under the same cricket framework they have their own best practices.

Project Management Standard:

A standard is a formal document that describes established norms, methods, processes, and practices. The knowledge contained in the standard has evolved from the recognized good practices of concerned field practitioners.

OR

Standard is a document approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines, or characteristics for products, processes or services with which compliance are not mandatory. Example is PMI’s PMBOK®. The diploma of project management online PMBOK contains guidelines, tools & techniques and processes that may use to manage a project successfully for most of the industries for most of the time.

Standards are more detailed and specific then a framework. Project Management framework states that activities costs should be estimated. PMBOK gives you the tools for cost estimation (like 3 point estimation or PERT) and define the whole process of cost estimation. Standard provides you different tools to perform a task and then left it to the practitioner to decide which tool to use when.

Project Management Methodology:

Methodology is the group of specific methods, tools and techniques applied to a field of study. Compliance with a prescribed methodology is mandatory. For example a multinational organization described the methodology for applying as a qualified seller to the organization. They provide you detailed process for being qualified as a registered seller to the company and in order to become a registered seller you have to follow it.

OGC’s PRINCE2 is a methodology. If you want to do the projects for UK government or public sector organizations, you have to follow PRICNE2.

Project Life Cycle:

Project life cycles are much like the life cycle that mother and father revel in elevating their kids to adulthood. Children start off as babies and generate masses of exhilaration anywhere they go. However, now no longer a whole lot is thought approximately them at first. So, you look at them as they grow, and also you determine their wishes. Over time, they mature and grow (and value plenty of cash withinside the process), till someday the mother and father’ task is done. Projects start off much like this and development alongside a comparable path.

Someone comes up with a fantastic concept for a project and actively solicits aid for it. The project, after being approved, progresses thru the intermediate phases to the finishing phase, in which it’s far finished and closed out. The project life cycle may be decided or formed through the precise factors of the organization, industry, or generation employed. The life cycle presents the primary framework for coping with the project, irrespective of the precise paintings worried.

Project life cycles can variety alongside a continuum from predictive or plan-pushed procedures at one cease to adaptive or change-pushed procedures on the other. In a predictive life cycle, the product and deliverables are described at the start of the project and any adjustments to scope are cautiously managed. In an adaptive life cycle, the product is advanced over a couple of iterations and special scope is described for every generation best because the generation begins, and explains how to start a project.

Characteristics of the Project Life Cycle:

Projects range in length and complexity. All projects may be mapped to the subsequent generic life cycle shape:

1. Starting the project,
2. Organizing and preparing,
3. Carrying out the project paintings, and
4. Closing the project.

The generic life cycle shape and relaxation of the 3 figures usually presentations the subsequent traits:

• Cost and staffing stages are low on the begin, top because the paintings is carried out, and drop swiftly because the project attracts to a close.
• The traditional value and staffing curve above might not follow to all projects. A project may also require good sized prices to stable wanted assets early in its life cycle, for instance, or be absolutely staffed from a factor very early in its life cycle.
• Risk and uncertainty are best on the begin of the project.
• These elements lower over the life of the project as selections are reached and as deliverables are accepted.
• The capacity to steer the very last traits of the project’s product, with out extensively impacting value, is maximum on the begin of the project and reduces because the project progresses in the direction of completion.
• Figure illustrates the concept that the value of creating adjustments and correcting mistakes commonly will increase notably because the project procedures completion.

Project Phases and Project Life Cycles:

A project life cycle is the collection of phases that a project passes thru from its initiation to its closure. The phases are usually sequential, and their names and numbers are decided through the management and manipulate wishes of the organization or organizations worried with inside the project, the character of the project itself, and its location of application.

Project phases usually include segments of labor that permit for easier management, planning, and manipulate of the paintings. Phases are usually time bounded, with a begin and finishing or manipulate factor. Some projects may also include one phase and others may also have many phases. The range of phases relies upon on the project complexity and the industry. For example, statistics generation projects would possibly development thru phases including requirements, design, program, test, and implement. All the collective phases the project progresses thru in live performance are referred to as the project life cycle.