Introduction | Historical Perspective | Early Project Management Focused Texts
Project Life Spans, Late 1980s | Project Life Spans in the 1990s
Whither Project Life Spans in the 2000-Decade? | Summary and Conclusions

Early Project Management Focused Texts

One of the earliest comprehensive texts on project management is Archibald's book: Managing High-Technology Programs and Projects (1976). In it, Archibald explains the project life span as follows:

The project life cycle has identifiable start and end points, which can be associated with a time scale. A project passes through several distinct phases as it matures, as illustrated in Figure 2.1. The life cycle includes all phases from point of inception to final termination of the project. The interfaces between phases are rarely clearly separated, except in cases where proposal acceptance of formal authorization to proceed separates the two phases."[7]

Figure 2.1 is actually a table, which lists five types of project and shows the typical activities for each in each of six phases. The six phases are sequentially: 1 - Concept; 2 - Definition; 3 - Design; 4 - Development; 5 - Application; and 6 - Post Completion.

Archibald goes on to say

"The Project Character Changes in Each Life-Cycle Phase
In each succeeding phase of a project new and different intermediate products (results) are created, with the product of one phase forming a major input to the next phase. Figure 2.2 illustrates the overall process. The rate of expenditure of resources changes, usually increasing with succeeding phases until a rapid decrease at completion. The people, skills, organizations, and other resources involved in the project change in each life cycle phase. Major review of the entire project occurs at the end of each phase, resulting in authorization to proceed with the next phase, cancellation of the project, or repetition of a previous phase."[8]

Archibald's Figure 2.2 is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Archibald's Project Life Span

The Project Management Institute ("PMI"), a US based not-for-profit organization dedicated to project management was launched in Pennsylvania in 1969. Its first formal textbook was "The Implementation of Project Management" edited by Dr. Linn Stuckenbruck (1981). In it, Stuckenbruck describes the project life cycle as follows

"The Project Life Cycle
A project consists of sequential phases as shown in Figure 1-1. These phases are extremely useful in planning a project since they provide a framework for budgeting, manpower and resource allocation, and for scheduling project milestones and project reviews. The method of division of a project into phases may differ somewhat from industry to industry, and from product to product, but the phases shown in the Figure are basic."[9]

Stuckenbruck's Figure 1-1 is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Stuckenbruck's government system life span

Stuckenbruck also tabulates what must be done in each phase by both top management and, as the project matures, by the project manager as shown in Table 1

Table 1: Stuckenbruck's project phase actions

In this table we see clear signs of the evolutionary nature of a project and the purpose of establishing a project life span model. Stuckenbruck then establishes a second purpose by observing

"This book is primarily concerned with the actions that take place during implementation of a project, which is a combination of the concept or initiation phase and the growth or organization phase. It is often useful to divide the project into phases as shown in Figure 1-2. This scheme of phases fits projects such as construction, and by plotting the phases versus total effort, a very clear picture can be obtained as to where the money goes."

Stuckenbruck's Figure 1-2 is shown in Figure 3.

Given the different interpretations of "implementation" we may question Stuckenbruck's use of this word. Is it the "execution phase", or is it the launching of the entire project? The contents of Table 1 suggest the latter. While on the subject of word meanings, program management and project management were often considered back then to be one and the same, as Stuckenbruck states "For the purposes of this book, the words project and program are considered to be synonymous."[10]

Figure 3: Stuckenbruck's effort-loaded life spans

PMI followed this publication with a series of monographs or mini handbooks. One, by Cavendish and Martin, described the relationship between contracting and the project life span, that is, the life span from a general contractor's perspective. The authors point out that for the contractor, the project starts with contract award and hence coincides with the implementation phase. This is an important point because many diehard project people, i.e. those from the contracting fraternity, do not consider that there is a "real" project to manage until it exists under a contract. Cavendish and Martin's project life span is shown in Figure 4 (1982).[11]

Figure 4: Cavendish and Martin's contract project life span

For the record, in a text that was little recognized at the time, this author attempted to distinguished between the corporate business life cycle, the facility/product life cycle and the project life cycle. Figure 5 shows the graphic that accompanied the descriptive text in PMI's first Project Management Body of Knowledge publication (1987).[12] This is perhaps the first formal recognition that projects always exist in an encompassing "environment", be it the government, private or non-profit sectors. However, Webster later picked up this idea in The Handbook of Project Management (1993) as shown in Figure 6.[13]

Figure 5: Wideman's corporate business, facility/product and project life spans compared

Figure 6: Webster's comparison of project and product life spans

Historical Perspective

Project Life Spans, Late 1980s

Home | Issacons | PM Glossary | Papers & Books | Max's Musings
Guest Articles | Contact Info | Search My Site | Site Map | Top of Page