Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide 4th Edition
Chapter 2 – Project Life Cycle and Organization

Core Definitions

• Project Life Cycle: A collection of generally sequential and sometimes overlapping project phases whose name and number are determined by the management and control needs of the organization or organizations involved in the project, the nature of the project itself, and its area of application. The project life cycle provides the basic framework for managing a project, regardless of the specific work involved.
• Project Phases: Divisions within a project where extra control is needed to effectively manage the completion of a major deliverable. Project phases are typically completed sequentially, but can overlap in some situations.
• Stakeholders: Persons or organizations (e.g. customers, sponsors, the performing organization, the public) who are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project. Stakeholders also may exert influence over the project, its deliverables, and the project team members.
• Organizational Process Assets: These include any or all process related assets, from any or all of the organizations involved in the project that can be used to influence the project’s success. Organizational process assets can be categorized as either processes and procedures (e.g. SOPs, guidelines, templates) or corporate knowledge base (e.g. measurement databases, project files, lessons learned, configuration management databases, issue management databases, financial databases).

General Notes

• (2.0) It is important to remember that projects and project management take place in an environment that is broader than that of the project itself.
• (2.1) Every project has a definite start and a definite end.
• (2.1.1) Generic life cycle structure: starting the project, organizing and preparing, carrying out the project work, closing the project.
• (2.1.1) Stakeholder influence, risk, uncertainty, and ability to influence the final characteristics of any/all outputs are high while cost and staffing levels are low at the beginning of the project life cycle.
• (2.1.2) Project life cycles occur in one or more phases of a product life cycle, and the two can be very much intertwined.
• (2.1.3.2) The three basic types of phase-to-phase relationships are: sequential, overlapping, and iterative.
• (2.2) Operations work supports the business environment where projects are executed. As a result, there is generally a significant amount of interaction between operations departments and a project team as they work together to achieve project goals.
• (2.3) Common stakeholders include: customers/users, sponsors, portfolio managers, program managers, the project management office (PMO), project managers, project team, functional managers, operations management, and business partners.