The Project Management Process

• Deliverable: a specific thing the project must produce, such as "60 bracelets" or "a price sign for every item."
• KPI (key performance indicator): a number that shows whether you reached a goal, such as profit, units sold or customer rating.
• Stakeholder: anyone who affects or is affected by the project, such as team members, customers, the school office or a supplier.
• Resources: what the work needs, including people, time, money, equipment and space.
• Risk: something that might go wrong, together with how likely it is and how much damage it would do.

What are Project Management Phases - 5 Stages of Project Life Cycle Explained | AIMS Education

Initiating produces a short project charter: a one-page summary that everyone agrees to before any money is spent. Good goals are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. "Make some money" is not a goal. "Earn at least $200 profit at a one-day shop on April 15" is.

Planning turns the goal into tasks. A task list breaks the work into small jobs, each with one owner, a start date and an end date. Some tasks depend on others: you cannot make bracelets until the supplies arrive. Laid out on a timeline, this becomes a Gantt chart, a bar chart where each task is a bar stretching from its start date to its end date, so you can see at a glance what overlaps and what must wait.

Delegation means giving each task to a specific person, along with the authority to get it done. A RACI chart makes roles crystal clear. For each task it shows who is Responsible (does the work), who is Accountable (makes sure it gets done and approves it; only one person), who is Consulted (gives advice before) and who is Informed (is told after).

The revenue forecast is 60 bracelets at $5.00 each ($300.00) plus 100 baked goods at $2.00 each ($200.00), for $500.00 in total. Forecast profit is $500.00 minus $280.00, which is $220.00. That clears the $200 goal with a small cushion, and because the forecast assumes the contingency is fully spent, it is a cautious estimate.

Executing means actually doing the plan: buying the supplies, making the products, leading the team and creating each deliverable. Plans almost never survive unchanged. When something changes (the bead supplier is out of one colour, a baker gets sick) the team manages the change: decide whether it affects the goal, the schedule or the budget, agree on a fix, and update the plan so everyone is working from the same version. Monitoring runs alongside executing. A short weekly status meeting asks three questions: What is done? What is late or at risk? What help is needed? The project lead compares progress with the schedule and compares spending with the budget. If the baking ingredients cost $7 more than planned, the extra comes out of the contingency line, and the team notes it. Writing down lessons learned during the project, not just at the end, means good ideas are not forgotten. Many teams also give each task a status colour at every check-in: green for on track, yellow for at risk, red for late or blocked and needing action now.

Closing means delivering the result and then asking honestly how it went. The fairest way to judge a project is against the goals and KPIs set at the start, not against how the team feels afterwards. For each KPI, compare the actual result with the target. Percent of target tells you how close you came.

Numbers show what happened. Feedback helps explain why. The club's 31 feedback forms said the bracelets were popular but several colours sold out by lunch, and that some customers had no cash and the line for the card reader was slow. That explains why profit fell just short even though stock sold well: the team sold out of its best sellers. A good closing reflection lists what worked, what did not, and one or two specific changes for next time, such as "make 20 more bracelets in the two best-selling colours" and "add a second payment device."