What are the Steps of Project Management

🧭 What Is Project Management?

Project management is like being the leader of a group project. You make a plan guide the team track progress and finish on time. Projects have five main steps or phases known as the project management life cycle as defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI) (Smartsheet).

Here are the top Steps of project management

1. Initiation 🚀

What happens in this phase?

• You decide if the project makes sense.
• You explain why it matters (“business case”) its goals and who will do it.
• You create a project charter stating the scope objectives key people and manager’s role (Wikipedia).

Why it matters

Skipping this leads to confusion wasted money and unclear rewards (Atlassian Atlassian).

Example

Sofia wants to improve how new employees get started at her company. She describes the benefits major outputs and goals such as “reduce training time by 20%” (Atlassian).

2. Planning 📋

Overview

Now the project is approved and you plan in full detail: tasks resources risks schedule and budget (Atlassian).

Steps

1. Collect requirements: Talk to stakeholders—like why they need the project (Northeastern University Graduate School).
2. Set SMART goals: Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time bound (Wikipedia).
3. Make a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): Break the project into smaller parts (Wikipedia).
4. Schedule tasks: Use charts like Gantt charts to show timing (Investopedia).
5. Estimate cost: Figure out how much money you need.
6. Plan roles: Decide who does what.
7. Identify risks: Think about what could go wrong and how to fix it.
8. Get approval: Stakeholders sign off to start executing.

Useful Tools

• Gantt chart: A bar chart showing tasks and deadlines (Wikipedia ProjectEngineer).
• Critical Path Method (CPM): Identifies tasks that can delay the project (Wikipedia).
• Risk management plan communication plan resource plan (ProjectEngineer project management.com).

Example

For Sofia’s onboarding redesign:

• Goals: improve speed quality
• Tasks: research needs design materials train staff
• Schedule: December–February
• Budget: $5000
• Risks: staff availability delays in material printing
• Roles: Alice (designer) Bob (trainer) Carol (budget manager)

3. Execution 🧠

What’s happening here?

Now the team works on tasks. This is where things get built written tested or wherever the real work is done (WIRED ProjectEngineer).

Tasks include:

• Assign tasks and resources
• Hold a kickoff meeting to start formally (Investopedia Wikipedia)
• Use tools like Jira Trello or Microsoft Project to track progress
• Ensure tasks meet quality standards

Example

Sofia’s team meets on day one to go over roles deadlines and tools. Alice designs templates Bob drafts guides and Carol tracks expenses.

4. Monitoring & Controlling 📊

What’s this phase about?

This phase happens while executing. You monitor progress and control any changes. That means checking time cost and quality (Coursera).

Methods

• Earned Value Analysis (EVA): Compares planned versus actual progress and cost (ProjectEngineer).
• Track KPIs project status risks and quality.
• Approve any changes using a formal process.
• Create status reports progress reports resource availability reports (ProjectManager).

Example

If Bob finishes late calculate:

• EV = actual work done value
• PV = planned work value
• AC = actual cost

If EV < PV or EV < AC you adjust the schedule or budget.

5. Closure 🏁

Wrapping things up

You finish and close the project. This includes final deliverables payments and team reviews (ProjectEngineer project management.com Resource Guru Coursera).

To do:

• Confirm all work is done
• Approve final deliverables
• Pay vendors release contracts
• Final budget and funding report
• Archive key documents: design files guides meeting notes
• Conduct a retrospective to note successes and what to improve
• Celebrate the team!

Example

Sofia’s team reviews what worked (clear guidelines) and what didn’t (late printing). They gather all docs pay vendors and thank the team.

🔁 Other Project Lifecycle Styles

Besides the standard linear style there are different ways to manage projects (Atlassian ActiveCollab):

• Waterfall (Predictive): Step by step one phase at a time.
• Agile (Iterative): Repeats phases in small cycles to improve as you go.
• Incremental: Completes projects in repeated blocks each block runs through all phases.

📚 Reports & Resources to Help You

• Project status reports: Show health in terms of time cost scope (ActiveCollab ProjectManager).
• Progress reports: Show tasks done what’s left.
• Resource availability reports: Who is busy/free; useful to avoid overload (ProjectManager).
• Variance reports: Compare actual versus planned performance.

Recommended Tools & Templates

• Atlassian templates by Jira & Confluence (Atlassian)
• Smartsheet guide on five phases (Smartsheet)
• PMBOK Guide – official standard with 49 processes in 5 groups 10 knowledge areas (Wikipedia)
• WBS and CPM from Wikipedia (Wikipedia)

🛠 Common Tools at a Glance

📈 Why This Approach Works Best

• Prevents mistakes early (smart planning saves money)
• Keeps work on time and budget
• Improves quality by regular checks
• Helps teams learn and improve next time

For example PMI found that poor management costs $122 million for every $1 billion spent (Atlassian ProjectEngineer).

✅ Quick Recap: Five Phases

1. Initiation: Decide project goals and get approval.
2. Planning: Make a detailed roadmap and budget.
3. Execution: Do the work and release tasks.
4. Monitoring & Controlling: Track progress and adjust.
5. Closure: Finalize work review results celebrate.

🧑‍🏫 A Classroom Project Example

Let’s say your school wants a science fair website by November:

• Initiation: Purpose (share student projects online) scope (design pages) team needed.
• Planning: List tasks (choose platform create pages upload content) find roles set deadlines.
• Execution: Team builds website uploads projects.
• Monitoring: Check if pages are done on time fix issues.
• Closure: Launch website gather feedback document lessons celebrate success!

📚 More Learning Resources

• PMBOK Guide (PMI) – widely used global standard (Atlassian Wikipedia Resource Guru ProjectEngineer).
• Atlassian (Jira) – free online templates (Atlassian).
• Smartsheet blog – detailed five phases guide (Smartsheet).
• ProjectEngineer & Kissflow – clear breakdown of phases and best practices (Kissflow).

🎯 Final Thoughts

Project management is about a smart 5 step chain: Initiate → Plan → Execute → Monitor → Close. Each step builds on the previous and makes your work smoother faster and better.

With the right tools like charters charts reports and teamwork you can carry any idea from the first thought to complete success.

Source of image: https://pixabay.com/photos/coffee-computer-cup-desk-drink-1869820/