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Leadership and the Project Lifecycle
Quick Summary
A table showing the evolution of leadership responsibilities during the different phases of a project.
What this is
A table showing the evolution of leadership responsibilities during the different phases of a project. This table can be used as a guide for selecting people with the right leadership and management attributes to lead projects, and it can be used to educate new project managers on how their role is influenced by the activities of each project phase.
Why it's useful
The project lifecycle describes the phases through which a project evolves from its conceptualization to completion. During the lifecycle, project leadership responsibilities also evolve to match the work and typical issues that occur in each phase.
During the Concept phase, project activities are focused on making judgment calls on a project idea, based on objectives and business case information that may be preliminary, uncertain, and even vague. Only a small group are working on the project, and the leader must drive this fuzzy phase to a decision point.
During the Initiation phase, a new project idea is getting further fleshed out, and a core team is assigned to create detailed marketing requirements, product or service requirements, and come up with alternatives for implementing the project deliverables. There may still be a great deal of uncertainty during this phase, and the leader must take the team through complex decisions and likely disagreements, while also taking them through planning activities for the rest of the project.
During the Execution phase and beyond, the project leader's role is focused more on the structured management of the efforts underway, along with ongoing people management and team leadership, handling of unexpected occurrences, and judging completeness and quality of the team's work.
How to use it
Use the table as a guide to :
- Consider the type of skills and attributed needed in each phase for your type of projects,
- Consider what person may be best suited to leading each of your efforts, based on the attributes most important to that effort at various phases,
- Educate your chosen project leaders on the requirements of the role at different times in the project,
- And help ensure that other staffing on the team is done at the right time to match the work and decisions occurring in each phase.
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