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11 Stages of Project Development

John Spacey, August 12, 2018

Project development is the end-to-end process of conceptualizing and delivering a project given a set of resources and constraints. This typically involves the following project stages. It should be noted that these stages may be run concurrently at all times or sequentially as a one time activity.

Initiation

The process of developing a project concept and an initial set of goals. Initiation may include a business case that maps out the benefits of a proposed project together with assumptions, constraints and estimates of required resources. At this stage much is unknown and the project may be nothing more than a high level goal.

Assumptions	Business Case
Project Benefits	Project Concept
Project Constraint	Return On Investment

Research

A project typically begins with many unknowns and progresses to a state where the problem space and solution space are well understood. This often involves a research stage whereby data is collected, experiments are performed and feasibility is confirmed.

Business Analysis	Business Experiments
Cone Of Uncertainty	Feasibility Studies
Market Research	Research & Development

Requirements

Gathering requirements from stakeholders and refining them to resolve inconsistencies and break them down to a useful level of detail. It is common to accept any functional and non-functional requirements stakeholders submit as these can be prioritized as part of planning.

Non-Functional Requirements	Project Stakeholders
Requirements	Requirements Elicitation
Requirements Quality

Estimates

The process of mapping requirements to tasks and then estimating the effort required for each task.

Cost Estimates	Estimates
Level Of Effort	Parametric Estimate
Reference Class Forecasting	Risk Estimates

Planning

Project planning is the process of prioritizing work, identifying dependencies and creating a work breakdown structure and schedule. Alternatively, requirements may be maintained in a backlog and planning may consist primarily of prioritizing enough work for a sprint of a few weeks in duration.

Agile Planning	Project Baseline
Project Charter	Project Dependencies
Project Planning	Sprint Planning

Procurement

The process of procuring materials, parts, components, services, facilities, infrastructure and development partners for a project.

Insourcing	Outsourcing
Procurement	Service Level Agreement

Architecture & Design

The design of solutions such as the architecture and interior design of a building. Likewise, software often includes a structural design known as architecture and a more detailed design that can be used to implement a solution.

Architecture	Product Design
Software Architecture	Software Design
Solution Architecture	Types Of Design

Implementation

Working to create deliverables that make the project happen such as the foundation of a building or a component of code. Implementation may done as a series of short sprints that regularly deliver deployable work products. Alternatively, implementation may be viewed as a project stage that spans months or years.

Deliverable	Issue Management
Phased Implementation	Project Controls
Sprints	Work Products

Testing

Testing is the process of controlling quality and confirming that what you have implemented accurately reflects requirements.

Acceptance Criteria	Quality
Quality Assurance	Test Cases
Testing	User Acceptance Testing

Deployment

Operationalizing the project. For software projects, this is often a process of releasing code to production. Deployment can also involve marketing launches, training and deployment of services involving multiple locations and teams.

Deployment	Direct Changeover
Dry Run	First Article Inspection
Parallel Run	Pilots

Closing

The process of releasing resources, finalizing processes and communicating the close of a project. This often includes a lessons learned session that captures any useful knowledge related to the project.

Knowledge Loss	Knowledge Management
Knowledge Of Performance	Knowledge Of Results
Lessons Learned	Project Communication

Project Development vs Project Management

Project development is the end-to-end process of developing a project from the perspective of all stakeholders. Project management is the process of delivering a project from the perspective of those controlling the project. In many cases, the project management team isn't involved in early stages of a project such as concept, feasibility studies and business case development.

Overview: Project Development
Type	Project Management
Definition	The end-to-end process of conceptualizing and delivering a project given a set of resources and constraints.
Related Concepts	Project Management » Business Case » Research » Cone Of Uncertainty » Problem Space » Requirements »