Lifecycle

Projects in the CERN IT department follow a tailored version of the PM2 methodology developed by the European Commission. The project lifecycle consists of the following phases:

  • Initiating: Get the project off to a good start.
  • Planning: define products, plan work…
  • Executing: create project’s products.
  • Closing: user acceptance, hand-over to maintenance.
Project lifecycle according to PM2 mehotodology.

At the end of each phase, the project passes through a review and approval gate. This ensures that the project is reviewed by the appropriate people before it moves on to the next phase. These checkpoints contribute to the overall project management quality and allow the project to proceed in a more controlled way. The three phase gates are:

  • Ready for Planning: at the end of the Initiating Phase
  • Ready for Executing: at the end of the Planning Phase
  • Ready for Closing: at the end of the Executing Phase.
Diagram representing the phases, phase gates, documents and review boards that are involved during the lifetime of the project.

If you are interested in starting a project in IT, please, get in touch with us. The first thing you have to do is to prepare the Project Charter. There is a template for that and the IT PMO team will be happy to give you more details and guide you through the process.