The Project Life Cycle: Improve Your Process & Communication With This Simple Framework

Complex projects involve a lot of people, tasks, and procedures. Having a comprehensive knowledge of the project life cycle, its types, and its various phases can lead to a more successful outcome. To understand more about the types and phases of a project life cycle, let’s start with the basics—what exactly is a project life cycle?

What Is A Project Life Cycle?

A project life cycle is a phase-wise structure for a project manager to coordinate a campaign from start to finish. This acts as a checklist to not only keep track of details but also to keep the project structured. Understanding your project’s life cycle is also useful when changes occur or you are managing multiple projects. It’s important to choose the right type of project life cycle for your project. So let’s discuss different types of project life cycles out there.

What Are The Types of Project Life Cycle?

 

1. Predictive Life Cycle

As the name suggests, a Predictive life cycle offers a predictive workflow. Every detail regarding a project including its schedule, costs, and the process is pre-decided. A team then performs in a manner to stick to the plan for finishing a project. This makes the whole process predictive because the scope of changes is minimal.

This project life cycle is also famously known as the “waterfall method”. The phases in such projects are divided distinctly. A project can only progress when the previous phase is completed so the overall workflow looks like a waterfall. Is it the right fit for my project? This type of project life cycle is ideal for simple projects. The Predictive life cycle approach builds a final product in one cycle only. For complex projects, there are a lot of changes involved while doing a project and often require more than one cycle to get it right. The Predictive life cycle fails to offer that flexibility.

2. Iterative Life Cycle

The Iterative life cycle also matches the name and description it holds. This life cycle is an iteration or repetition of a predictive life cycle in small packets. In this approach too, most of the project is pre-planned, but the goal is to make a minimum viable product in the first iteration.

This product is then demonstrated and feedback is taken to build a strategy for the second iteration and the product is improved. Any changes are also incorporated before the second iteration. After many such small waterfalls, a final product is delivered. Is it the right fit for my project? This kind of project life cycle is good for a little complex project because of the flexibility it offers. It is better at handling sudden changes in scope, cost, or schedule of a project in a better manner.

But even after solving many problems posed by the Predictive life cycle, there are still some projects that require us to adapt very fast. These projects are not well defined and demand constant changes, and that brings us to the Adaptive life cycle.

3. Adaptive Life Cycle

This type of project life cycle is totally opposite from a Predictive life cycle. This approach is more open to change and works for very complex projects where it is difficult to define the project requirements beforehand. In this approach, the iterations are time-bound and rapid. Each iteration is known as an increment and is focused on delivering a part of the project each time. As each iteration is rapid—new changes are incorporated after each cycle—making it the most flexible project life cycle.

Is it the right fit for my project? The adaptive life cycle is based on working over feedback in each iteration. This requires the team to communicate and collaborate in the clearest way possible to deal with changes. Such methodology is ideal for a complex project where customer feedback is of utmost importance. But it also makes it difficult for a project manager to define the scope of a project and offer clarity regarding deadlines and cost of a project.