What Stage is my Project?

Projects have a broader natural lifecycle beyond the typical phases within an actively worked project. It is in the lifecycle that projects are explored, planned, worked, and completed. When managing a portfolio of projects, tracking the Stage is key to understanding where projects are in their lifecycle. And more importantly, allows for leadership conversations around your customers' and organization's strategic goals.

For our project teams, working technology solution deployments and business operations projects, we use the following Stages to group projects for strategic planning & alignment conversations with both our customers and within our broader organization.

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80/20 Next Level Details

Providing well-defined detailed operational definitions are needed to keep consistency within a portfolio. Given human nature, jointly define and document the definition and also summarize it concisely for easy reference.

1-Exploring	​Actively considering a project or solution to address a need this or next Fiscal Year.
Definition	Organization identifies a need and is reviewing options to address. Some projects may spend weeks/months in this status. Some projects may spend only minutes/hours and thereby not worth tracking in this status. Not intended as a holding spot of all future ideas and/or to-do projects.
Typical Outcome	Project is authorized. Stage is moved to "2-Planning". Project is not approved. Stage is changed to "7-Cancelled".

2-Planning	Project resources, dates, scope, and/or contracting in-progress.
Definition	The project is selected/approved to move forward. Project components not yet finalized and approved by all parties/groups.
Typical Outcome	Project components are finalized. Stage is changed to "3-Scheduled". Agreement cannot be finalized. Stage is moved to "7-Cancelled".

3-Scheduled	Finalized project date, resources, scope, and contract, but project not yet started.
Definition	Project components finalized and approved by all parties/groups. Project kickoff not yet occurred. Some projects may spend weeks/months in this status. Some projects may spend only minutes/hours and thereby not worth tracking in this status.
Typical Outcome	Project kickoff occurs. Stage is moved to "4-In-Progress".

4-In-Progress	​Project kickoff meeting held and project underway.
Definition	Start date (project kickoff) is in the past and project completion date is in the future. Project resources are actively working on the project per the project plan.
Typical Outcome	All project activities completed. Stage is moved to "5-Completed". Project activities stopped. Stage is changed to "6-On-hold".

5-Completed	All project activities completed.
Definition	On-going ownership of project is handed-off to responsible parties. Project deliverable goal(s) accomplished.

6-On-Hold	Project activity started, but resource activity stopped.
Description	Project activity started, but leadership puts resource activity on-hold. Expect project activity to be restarted at a future near-term date.
Typical Outcome	Project activities are resumed. Stage is changed to "4-In-Progress". Leadership determines project should not proceed. Stage is moved to "7-Cancelled".

7-Cancelled	Project discontinued after some level of activity.
Description	Project activity started, but leadership decides to stop the project completely. No additional activity or investment are anticipated with the project.

A couple of final notes:

• The Stage names start with numbers so they naturally sort by project lifecycle. Our strategic planning reports group projects by customer, then by Stage, then by Completion date.

• Project Stage is different than Project Phases. Phases are within an active in-progress project (e.g. Analysis, Build, Training, etc.) from project kickoff through completion.

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80/20 Takeaway

Tracking the project Lifecycle Stage in a Project Portfolio allows for strategic leadership conversations to align projects to both organizational and customer goals. And it is important to clearly and concisely define each Stage.

Do you track and organize projects by lifecycle Stage? How would you improve upon this Framework? What's your Framework?