PROJECTS

Projects are known to be a series of tasks that a team of individuals aims at achieving by working together over a certain period of time. A team leader is one who heads a project’s tasks and he or she is the one who assigns the team members responsibilities and they are expected to work on the responsibilities with scarce resources and in a short period of time. A project needs to be done or accomplished with an aim of achieving a specific outcome.

There are key characteristics that a project plan should have; Scope of the project that gives a definition of what is covered, resources that need to be used to reach the scope, time that the tasks put down need to be undertaken and by what time they should be completed, quality of your work which allows one to have the desired standard at the end and risk which is anything that can happen through the process and during that specified time and at least have a way to recover the situation.
A project has five stages that include; the definition stage, Feasibility test stage, Planning stage, Execution stage, Monitoring and Control stage and Closure stage. These stages aid in giving your efforts a structure and simplifying them into manageable and logical steps

The first stage is associated with the project’s value and feasibility. Feasibility test stage involves a business case document which justifies the need for the project and estimates the potential financial benefits. It also has a feasibility study that is basically an evaluation of the project’s set goals, timeline and costs. This helps to balance the requirements of the project and the available resources to see to the project’s end as per the goals set.

The planning stage deals with the solid plan that guides the whole team to keep them on time and on budget as well. Project planning helps give the team direction to be able to produce quality outputs and to be able to handle risks and also create acceptance. It also prepares the team fully for any obstacles that could come their way over the project course.
Execution stage is mostly associated with the project management. It deals with all the deliverables that are meant to meet the customers’ needs and specifications. To achieve this, the team leaders allocate resources and make sure the team members are focused on their allocated tasks. This stage relies so much on the second stage. The work and efforts of the team during this execution stage is gotten from the plan of the project.

The project monitoring and control stage can be combined with the execution stage because they occur almost at the same time. As a team is executing its project plans it can as well monitor the progress. Teams must monitor tasks so as to be able to analyze the main performance and monitor the differences in the allocated time and cost. This stage aids in keeping the project moving ahead well.

Lastly is the Closure stage whereby the team closes the project after they have effectively delivered to the esteemed customer a finished project and by communicating the completion with the stakeholders involved. In this stage, the team is able to analyze, document the project and move on to the next
projects having learnt from the previous ones both their successes and mistakes so as to be able to build a stronger process with even more prosperous teams.
In conclusion, managing a successful project might not be as easy, it could be too tiresome because of the intense and cumbersome work to be done but breaking it down into these stages really helps the team manage all kind of projects, even the most complex ones because there are and also help the team be able to use time and resources more wisely.