What does project cycle consist of?

Every project cycle contains four steps: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Evaluation. Each step plays a crucial role within the lifecycle of the project, meaning no phase should be looked at more importantly that any of the others.

The Initiation phase includes the essential purpose and extent of the project, the explanation for undertaking it and the solution to be implemented. It also includes recruiting the project team and carrying out a phase review, before proceeding to the next stage. The Planning phase includes the design of a set of planning documents which will steer the team throughout the project. Throughout the Execution phase, the deliverables are physically built and presented to the customer for acceptance. While each deliverable is being constructed, a group of management processes is carried out to monitor and control activities. Once all the deliverables have been produced and accepted by the customer, the project is ready for closure. The first and most important step is to build the deliverables specified in terms of Reference. During this activity, an in-depth design of each deliverable is formed, and the deliverables are physically constructed, tested and reviewed to determine whether they meet the quality criteria and the acceptance criteria. When all the criteria’s have been met the deliverables are signed off by the customer and handed over. At this stage, the project is ready for closure. The Evaluation phase is the overall view at the end of the project to look at how the project has gone, which is known sometimes as ‘PCR’ Post Completion review, here the staff involved in the project will sit down together and talk through what they think worked well and if they were to redo the project again, what they would do differently.  Evaluation is often carried out by an independent person to provide an unbiased opinion of the project outcome.