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Data-smart city solutions, case study: performance management and lean process improvement - results washington, an operational excellence in government success story.

• May 31, 2017
• Operational Excellence in Government

This resource is part of the Ash Center's Operational Excellence in Government Project.

Executive Summary

This case study is one of three highlighting successes identified as part of the Operational Excellence in Government Project. The purpose of the case studies is to elevate and document the successes, and in doing so to provide a greater amount of detail than is typically available about such efforts. The case studies explain the implementation steps, the key challenges, and the driving factors for success. With this work, we hope to reduce the cost of identifying opportunities for efficiency and cost savings across all layers of government, and to accelerate the transfer and deployment of successful cases.

This case study describes how the state of Washington implemented two key operational efficiency strategies for government — performance management and employee-driven process improvement. The effort, called Results Washington, sets priorities and then focuses on delivery to achieve results that make a difference in the lives of Washingtonians. Results Washington was launched in 2013 by Governor Jay Inslee. He established five top-priority statewide goals and challenged state government leaders to track their progress against these goals and to apply Lean thinking and tools to improve their processes. Highlights of the success of the initiative include:

Performance management. Every activity of state government aligns with one of five priority goals: World-Class Education; Prosperous Economy; Sustainable Energy and a Clean Environment; Healthy and Safe Communities; and Effective, Efficient, and Accountable Government. Indicators of progress toward these goals are tracked on a public dashboard ( www.results.wa.gov ), and the underlying data is publicly available too. Success to date includes:

• 50 percent of the nearly 200 Results Washington goals are on track to meet or beat targets  
• Many of the indicators tracked are complex challenges that require collaboration across departmental lines, such as homelessness, pollution, offender recidivism, and teen pregnancy. State employees work with private and nonprofit partners as well as customers to devise strategies to deliver results.    
• Monthly progress meetings are public and are also live-streamed. All data, agendas, and meeting results are published to the Results Washington website.

Process improvement. Lean process improvement empowers employees to remove bottlenecks and unneeded processing steps. This puts problem solving where it is most powerful, in the hands of those who best understand processes- from the frontlines of service delivery to backend administration. This approach has proven successful- a study showed that $4.5 in value to taxpayers is returned for every $1 invested in the Lean process improvement program. A total of $33 million in savings and avoided costs have been achieved, as well as countless hours saved via streamlined processes, resulting in improved customer satisfaction.

Selected individual project results include:

• One million hours [1] of time saved waiting in Department of Licensing lobbies using process improvements and partnering with private driver-training schools  
• 15-percent [2] decrease in speed-related deaths  
• 20-percent [3]  faster processing of DNA tests at the Crime Lab, reducing the backlog by 10 percent and cutting staff overtime 56 percent   
• $6.2 million in recovered overpayments from Department of Labor and Industries, a 28-percent increase in one year  
• $2.3 million in savings a year on long-distance phone calls

One key to the success of Results Washington is that it is both top-down and bottom-up. Top-level executive sponsorship has been consistent and high profile — the governor not only presides over monthly meetings, he walks around in state agencies asking employees for input and holds department heads accountable for delivering results that span the silos of government. Employees are empowered — a third of the workforce has been trained in how to improve processes, and 11 percent of all state employees have participated in a Lean process improvement project — it is becoming part of the organizational culture.

The state employees who have accomplished this did not do it alone — the public and the private sectors both contributed. The public contributes ideas via an interactive survey on the state website and through public results meetings. Private-sector Lean process improvement experts from 130 companies have contributed thousands of hours of expertise teaching, coaching, and mentoring state staff working on process improvement projects. 

Other state and local governments do not need to reinvent the wheel but can instead borrow from what Washington has done on both performance measurement and process improvement. As Rich Roesler, former acting director of Results Washington says, “We steal ideas from other states and welcome people to steal our ideas.”

The pages that follow describe how Results Washington was implemented and how it operates, and provide resources to help other jurisdictions achieve more efficient operations.

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Performance Management in Chicago Public Schools

Geoff Marietta, Lewis (Harry) Spence

• Format: PDF
• Case Code: KC08PERFO
• Format: Permission to reprint

This case describes the efforts of new Chicago Public Schools (CPS) superintendent Ron Huberman to drive dramatic improvement in the performance of Chicago’s public school students through the use of performance management (PM) throughout the school system. The case can be used to develop a number of key themes about performance management systems. Because this is the story of Huberman’s efforts to build an effective performance management system in CPS, it allows students to develop their thinking about PM in education without their thinking being shaped by a perfected model. Comparisons with Huberman’s previous professional assignments provide an opportunity to examine the unique challenges of the educational environment.

Subjects: Leadership, Performance Management Setting: Public, Urban

*Permission to reprint can only be purchased  after  the actual case has been purchased as a PDF or hard copy.

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• Faculty & Research →
• March 2020 (Revised February 2023)
• HBS Case Collection

Performance Management at Afreximbank (A)

• Format: Print
• | Language: English
• | Pages: 28

About The Authors

Robert S. Kaplan

Anywhere Sikochi

Related work.

• February 2023
• Faculty Research

Performance Management at Afreximbank (B)

• January 2023 (Revised February 2023)

Performance Management at Afreximbank (A) and (B)

• Performance Management at Afreximbank (B)  By: Robert S. Kaplan, Siko Sikochi, Anna Ngarachu and Namrata Arora
• Performance Management at Afreximbank (A) and (B)  By: Robert S. Kaplan and Siko Sikochi
• Performance Management at Afreximbank (A)  By: Robert S. Kaplan, Siko Sikochi and Josh Steimle

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Performance Management at Vitality Health Enterprises, Inc.

By: John B. Bingham, Michael Beer

Vitality Health Enterprises, a medium-sized firm that manufactures health and personal care products, has experienced six straight quarters of strong revenue growth. James Hoffman, the new Senior…

• Length: 14 page(s)
• Publication Date: Jul 12, 2012
• Discipline: Human Resource Management
• Product #: 913501-PDF-ENG

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Vitality Health Enterprises, a medium-sized firm that manufactures health and personal care products, has experienced six straight quarters of strong revenue growth. James Hoffman, the new Senior Vice President of Human Resources, fears that the chain of success is shifting the company's focus away from effective performance management. Recently, Vitality has been faced with increasing turnover among the company's talented research scientists that may be due to a performance management system that leaves top performing employees slighted by the practice of uniform ratings. In an effort to retain top employees, the company institutes a forced distribution model of performance rankings, moving from an absolute ranking system to a relative one. Hoffman and his performance management evaluation team must assess the practical and strategic effectiveness of the new system and present their findings and recommendations to the Board.

Learning Objectives

Explore essential elements of a performance management system in a broad organizational context, specifically regarding the identification and reward of top performers.

Acquaint students with the challenges associated with designing, evaluating, and refining a performance management system as new evidence is gathered about employee performance and motivation.

Evaluate the pros and cons of forced distribution performance rating systems in contrast with absolute performance management systems.

Jul 12, 2012

Discipline:

Human Resource Management

HBS Brief Cases

913501-PDF-ENG

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Performance Management

The University's approach to performance management is based on the understanding that regular, meaningful conversations between managers and employees lead to better results and higher engagement for everyone. All administrative/professional and support staff at Harvard are encouraged to meet with their managers as frequently as they choose to discuss their work priorities, performance, and developmental needs and aspirations. Managers are expected to proactively schedule and structure these meetings throughout the year to minimize the stress associated with one-time, high stakes, end-of-year performance appraisals.

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Performance Management Case Study: Fossil Group

Jocelyn Stange

February 4, 2021 | 2 minute read

In this blog, we'll share how Fossil Group evolved its performance management process and 3 simple steps.

The Evolution of Fossil's Performance Management Process

Fossil Group was using a complex, 100% paper process for performance reviews and check-ins for more than 15,000 global employees. They wanted to move toward a digital performance management strategy, but knew they needed to simplify the process first.

Fossil Group set up four traditional components that were stretched across three strategic touch points throughout the year. These touch points were supplemented with ongoing performance conversations that could be initiated by any employee, at any time.

As Fossil Group evolved its company-wide performance appro a ch , they were happy to see immediate progress.

92% of employees were participating in goal-setting reviews, setting an average of six goals per employee.

However, when they dug into the data, they found that 35% of individual goals created were misaligned or did not have an impact on the organization and its strategic priorities. They knew they needed to get better at goal alignment if they wanted to meet important business objectives.

Explore the three ways Fossil Group simplified performance management.

1. They scheduled ongoing performance conversations and continuous feedback.

Although the three formal performance touch points in place were working, Fossil Group knew teams needed to have goal conversations more frequently. They implemented informal “check-ins” that could be launched by any employee at any time.

To ensure  adequate time was made for important performance conversations and other performance related activities, Fossil Group implemented "Performance Days" — days strictly dedicated to employee performance. On these days, n o task-related meetings are scheduled, and all work is set aside for the day. Conversations between managers, employees, and teams are all centered on performance.

2. They created intuitive goal conversation templates.

Fossil Group recognized that simply having more performance conversations wasn’t enough — the conversations needed to include healthy dialogue, debate, and collaboration from managers and employees. They created 1-on-1 templates to help guide managers and employees through an effective and productive goal conversation.

Check-in templates could be customized to the needs and work of individual teams and team members. The templates helped ensure conversations were focused on creating clear, aligned, and motivating goals. 

3. They used recognition to keep performance conversations fresh.

Fossil Group wanted to bring performance conversations full circle by recognizing employee performance daily. They created recognition toolkits for managers including fun notecards, gift cards, and employee recognition tips. They  also  launched an online, peer-to-peer recognition program that generated an average of 140 recognition stories each week.

By  taking time to uncover the needs of its employees, and delegating time for managers to focus on perf ormance,  Fossil Group  was able to listen and act on employee voices and evolve their performance strategy f or  succes s .

Download our latest ebook: Making Time for Performance Management to get more tips for simplifying your performance management process.

Published February 4, 2021 | Written By Jocelyn Stange

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The four building blocks of change

Large-scale organizational change has always been difficult, and there’s no shortage of research showing that a majority of transformations continue to fail. Today’s dynamic environment adds an extra level of urgency and complexity. Companies must increasingly react to sudden shifts in the marketplace, to other external shocks, and to the imperatives of new business models. The stakes are higher than ever.

So what’s to be done? In both research and practice, we find that transformations stand the best chance of success when they focus on four key actions to change mind-sets and behavior: fostering understanding and conviction, reinforcing changes through formal mechanisms, developing talent and skills, and role modeling. Collectively labeled the “influence model,” these ideas were introduced more than a dozen years ago in a McKinsey Quarterly article, “ The psychology of change management .” They were based on academic research and practical experience—what we saw worked and what didn’t.

Digital technologies and the changing nature of the workforce have created new opportunities and challenges for the influence model (for more on the relationship between those trends and the model, see this article’s companion, “ Winning hearts and minds in the 21st century ”). But it still works overall, a decade and a half later (exhibit). In a recent McKinsey Global Survey, we examined successful transformations and found that they were nearly eight times more likely to use all four actions as opposed to just one. 1 1. See “ The science of organizational transformations ,” September 2015. Building both on classic and new academic research, the present article supplies a primer on the model and its four building blocks: what they are, how they work, and why they matter.

Fostering understanding and conviction

We know from research that human beings strive for congruence between their beliefs and their actions and experience dissonance when these are misaligned. Believing in the “why” behind a change can therefore inspire people to change their behavior. In practice, however, we find that many transformation leaders falsely assume that the “why” is clear to the broader organization and consequently fail to spend enough time communicating the rationale behind change efforts.

This common pitfall is predictable. Research shows that people frequently overestimate the extent to which others share their own attitudes, beliefs, and opinions—a tendency known as the false-consensus effect. Studies also highlight another contributing phenomenon, the “curse of knowledge”: people find it difficult to imagine that others don’t know something that they themselves do know. To illustrate this tendency, a Stanford study asked participants to tap out the rhythms of well-known songs and predict the likelihood that others would guess what they were. The tappers predicted that the listeners would identify half of the songs correctly; in reality, they did so less than 5 percent of the time. 2 2. Chip Heath and Dan Heath, “The curse of knowledge,” Harvard Business Review , December 2006, Volume 8, Number 6, hbr.org.

Therefore, in times of transformation, we recommend that leaders develop a change story that helps all stakeholders understand where the company is headed, why it is changing, and why this change is important. Building in a feedback loop to sense how the story is being received is also useful. These change stories not only help get out the message but also, recent research finds, serve as an effective influencing tool. Stories are particularly effective in selling brands. 3 3. Harrison Monarth, “The irresistible power of storytelling as a strategic business tool,” Harvard Business Review , March 11, 2014, hbr.org.

Even 15 years ago, at the time of the original article, digital advances were starting to make employees feel involved in transformations, allowing them to participate in shaping the direction of their companies. In 2006, for example, IBM used its intranet to conduct two 72-hour “jam sessions” to engage employees, clients, and other stakeholders in an online debate about business opportunities. No fewer than 150,000 visitors attended from 104 countries and 67 different companies, and there were 46,000 posts. 4 4. Icons of Progress , “A global innovation jam,” ibm.com. As we explain in “Winning hearts and minds in the 21st century,” social and mobile technologies have since created a wide range of new opportunities to build the commitment of employees to change.

Reinforcing with formal mechanisms

Psychologists have long known that behavior often stems from direct association and reinforcement. Back in the 1920s, Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning research showed how the repeated association between two stimuli—the sound of a bell and the delivery of food—eventually led dogs to salivate upon hearing the bell alone. Researchers later extended this work on conditioning to humans, demonstrating how children could learn to fear a rat when it was associated with a loud noise. 5 5. John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, “Conditioned emotional reactions,” Journal of Experimental Psychology , 1920, Volume 3, Number 1, pp. 1–14. Of course, this conditioning isn’t limited to negative associations or to animals. The perfume industry recognizes how the mere scent of someone you love can induce feelings of love and longing.

Reinforcement can also be conscious, shaped by the expected rewards and punishments associated with specific forms of behavior. B. F. Skinner’s work on operant conditioning showed how pairing positive reinforcements such as food with desired behavior could be used, for example, to teach pigeons to play Ping-Pong. This concept, which isn’t hard to grasp, is deeply embedded in organizations. Many people who have had commissions-based sales jobs will understand the point—being paid more for working harder can sometimes be a strong incentive.

Despite the importance of reinforcement, organizations often fail to use it correctly. In a seminal paper “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B,” management scholar Steven Kerr described numerous examples of organizational-reward systems that are misaligned with the desired behavior, which is therefore neglected. 6 6. Steven Kerr, “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B,” Academy of Management Journal , 1975, Volume 18, Number 4, pp. 769–83. Some of the paper’s examples—such as the way university professors are rewarded for their research publications, while society expects them to be good teachers—are still relevant today. We ourselves have witnessed this phenomenon in a global refining organization facing market pressure. By squeezing maintenance expenditures and rewarding employees who cut them, the company in effect treated that part of the budget as a “super KPI.” Yet at the same time, its stated objective was reliable maintenance.

Even when organizations use money as a reinforcement correctly, they often delude themselves into thinking that it alone will suffice. Research examining the relationship between money and experienced happiness—moods and general well-being—suggests a law of diminishing returns. The relationship may disappear altogether after around $75,000, a much lower ceiling than most executives assume. 7 7. Belinda Luscombe, “Do we need $75,000 a year to be happy?” Time , September 6, 2010, time.com.

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Money isn’t the only motivator, of course. Victor Vroom’s classic research on expectancy theory explained how the tendency to behave in certain ways depends on the expectation that the effort will result in the desired kind of performance, that this performance will be rewarded, and that the reward will be desirable. 8 8. Victor Vroom, Work and motivation , New York: John Wiley, 1964. When a Middle Eastern telecommunications company recently examined performance drivers, it found that collaboration and purpose were more important than compensation (see “Ahead of the curve: The future of performance management,” forthcoming on McKinsey.com). The company therefore moved from awarding minor individual bonuses for performance to celebrating how specific teams made a real difference in the lives of their customers. This move increased motivation while also saving the organization millions.

How these reinforcements are delivered also matters. It has long been clear that predictability makes them less effective; intermittent reinforcement provides a more powerful hook, as slot-machine operators have learned to their advantage. Further, people react negatively if they feel that reinforcements aren’t distributed fairly. Research on equity theory describes how employees compare their job inputs and outcomes with reference-comparison targets, such as coworkers who have been promoted ahead of them or their own experiences at past jobs. 9 9. J. S. Adams, “Inequity in social exchanges,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology , 1965, Volume 2, pp. 267–300. We therefore recommend that organizations neutralize compensation as a source of anxiety and instead focus on what really drives performance—such as collaboration and purpose, in the case of the Middle Eastern telecom company previously mentioned.

Developing talent and skills

Thankfully, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Human brains are not fixed; neuroscience research shows that they remain plastic well into adulthood. Illustrating this concept, scientific investigation has found that the brains of London taxi drivers, who spend years memorizing thousands of streets and local attractions, showed unique gray-matter volume differences in the hippocampus compared with the brains of other people. Research linked these differences to the taxi drivers’ extraordinary special knowledge. 10 10. Eleanor Maguire, Katherine Woollett, and Hugo Spires, “London taxi drivers and bus drivers: A structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis,” Hippocampus , 2006, Volume 16, pp. 1091–1101.

Despite an amazing ability to learn new things, human beings all too often lack insight into what they need to know but don’t. Biases, for example, can lead people to overlook their limitations and be overconfident of their abilities. Highlighting this point, studies have found that over 90 percent of US drivers rate themselves above average, nearly 70 percent of professors consider themselves in the top 25 percent for teaching ability, and 84 percent of Frenchmen believe they are above-average lovers. 11 11. The art of thinking clearly, “The overconfidence effect: Why you systematically overestimate your knowledge and abilities,” blog entry by Rolf Dobelli, June 11, 2013, psychologytoday.com. This self-serving bias can lead to blind spots, making people too confident about some of their abilities and unaware of what they need to learn. In the workplace, the “mum effect”—a proclivity to keep quiet about unpleasant, unfavorable messages—often compounds these self-serving tendencies. 12 12. Eliezer Yariv, “‘Mum effect’: Principals’ reluctance to submit negative feedback,” Journal of Managerial Psychology , 2006, Volume 21, Number 6, pp. 533–46.

Even when people overcome such biases and actually want to improve, they can handicap themselves by doubting their ability to change. Classic psychological research by Martin Seligman and his colleagues explained how animals and people can fall into a state of learned helplessness—passive acceptance and resignation that develops as a result of repeated exposure to negative events perceived as unavoidable. The researchers found that dogs exposed to unavoidable shocks gave up trying to escape and, when later given an opportunity to do so, stayed put and accepted the shocks as inevitable. 13 13. Martin Seligman and Steven Maier, “Failure to escape traumatic shock,” Journal of Experimental Psychology , 1967, Volume 74, Number 1, pp. 1–9. Like animals, people who believe that developing new skills won’t change a situation are more likely to be passive. You see this all around the economy—from employees who stop offering new ideas after earlier ones have been challenged to unemployed job seekers who give up looking for work after multiple rejections.

Instilling a sense of control and competence can promote an active effort to improve. As expectancy theory holds, people are more motivated to achieve their goals when they believe that greater individual effort will increase performance. 14 14. Victor Vroom, Work and motivation , New York: John Wiley, 1964. Fortunately, new technologies now give organizations more creative opportunities than ever to showcase examples of how that can actually happen.

Role modeling

Research tells us that role modeling occurs both unconsciously and consciously. Unconsciously, people often find themselves mimicking the emotions, behavior, speech patterns, expressions, and moods of others without even realizing that they are doing so. They also consciously align their own thinking and behavior with those of other people—to learn, to determine what’s right, and sometimes just to fit in.

While role modeling is commonly associated with high-power leaders such as Abraham Lincoln and Bill Gates, it isn’t limited to people in formal positions of authority. Smart organizations seeking to win their employees’ support for major transformation efforts recognize that key opinion leaders may exert more influence than CEOs. Nor is role modeling limited to individuals. Everyone has the power to model roles, and groups of people may exert the most powerful influence of all. Robert Cialdini, a well-respected professor of psychology and marketing, examined the power of “social proof”—a mental shortcut people use to judge what is correct by determining what others think is correct. No wonder TV shows have been using canned laughter for decades; believing that other people find a show funny makes us more likely to find it funny too.

Today’s increasingly connected digital world provides more opportunities than ever to share information about how others think and behave. Ever found yourself swayed by the number of positive reviews on Yelp? Or perceiving a Twitter user with a million followers as more reputable than one with only a dozen? You’re not imagining this. Users can now “buy followers” to help those users or their brands seem popular or even start trending.

The endurance of the influence model shouldn’t be surprising: powerful forces of human nature underlie it. More surprising, perhaps, is how often leaders still embark on large-scale change efforts without seriously focusing on building conviction or reinforcing it through formal mechanisms, the development of skills, and role modeling. While these priorities sound like common sense, it’s easy to miss one or more of them amid the maelstrom of activity that often accompanies significant changes in organizational direction. Leaders should address these building blocks systematically because, as research and experience demonstrate, all four together make a bigger impact.

Tessa Basford is a consultant in McKinsey’s Washington, DC, office; Bill Schaninger is a director in the Philadelphia office.

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4 Phases of the Project Management Lifecycle Explained

Discover the four steps of the project management lifecycle—initiating, planning, executing, and closing—and how to get started in this field.

What is the project management lifecycle?

The project management lifecycle is a step-by-step framework of best practices used to shepherd a project from its beginning to its end. This project management process generally includes four phases: initiating, planning, executing, and closing. Some may also include a fifth “monitoring and controlling” phase between the executing and closing stages.

The purpose of the project management lifecycle is to provide project managers with:

A structured way to create, execute, and finish a project.

Clear phases, milestones, and deliverables

Better communication among stakeholders

Risk management

Quality control

By following each step of the lifecycle, a project team increases the chance of achieving its goals. As a project manager , you'll need to know this process well.

Read more: What Does a Project Manager Do? A Career Guide

Transitioning into a project management role? You can gain job-ready skills with an industry leader through Google's Project Management Professional Certificate program. In just 6 months , you'll gain an understanding of key concepts like change and risk management, organizational culture, strategic thinking, stakeholder management, Scrum, and Agile:

The Project Management Lifecycle: 4 Steps

1. initiating.

In the initiation phase, you’ll define the project, including:

Project goals, scope, and resources

Project purpose

What roles are needed on the team

What stakeholders expect out of the project

This is a crucial phase to the project’s success, as it gives the team direction. Without clarity around what needs to be achieved and why, the project runs the risk of not accomplishing the end goals and meeting stakeholders' expectations.

Some steps in the initiation phase include:

Communicating with stakeholders to understand the purpose and desired outcomes of the project

Identifying project scope

Determining SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound)

Clarifying resources like budget and time constraints

Confirming team size and roles required

Determining how often and which stakeholders will be involved throughout the project

Compiling a project proposal and project charter

Tools and documents used in the initiation phase can include:

Project proposal: The project proposal defines a project and outlines key dates, requirements, and goals.

Project charter: This is a definitive document that describes the project and main details necessary to reach its goals. This can include potential risks, benefits, constraints, and key stakeholders.

RACI chart: A RACI chart plots the roles and responsibilities of members on a project team.

2. Planning

In the planning phase, you’ll determine the steps to actually achieve the project goals—the “how” of completing a project. 

You’ll establish budgets, timelines, and milestones, and source materials and necessary documents. This step also involves calculating and predicting risk, putting change processes into place, and outlining communication protocols. If the initiation phase is assembling your troops, the planning phase is deciding what to do with them.

The planning phase can include the following steps:

Deciding on milestones that lead up to goal completion

Developing a schedule for tasks and milestones, including time estimates and potential time buffers

Establishing change processes

Determining how and how often to communicate with team members and stakeholders

Creating and signing documents such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or requests for proposal (RFPs)

Assessing and managing risk by creating a risk register

Holding a kick-off meeting to start project

Tools you might use in a this phase include: 

Gantt chart: A horizontal bar chart in which members can see what tasks must be completed in what order, and how long each is expected to take

Risk register: A chart that lists risks associated with the project, along with their probability, potential impact, risk level, and mitigation plans

Read more: What Is Change Management? + How to Use It Effectively

3. Execute and complete tasks

Executing a project means putting your plan into action and keeping the team on track. Generally this means tracking and measuring progress, managing quality, mitigating risk, managing the budget, and using data to inform your decisions. 

Specific steps might include:

Using tools like GANTT or burndown charts to track progress on tasks

Responding to risks when they manifest

Recording costs

Keeping team members motivated and on task

Keeping stakeholders informed of progress

Incorporating changes via change requests

Some tools you might use include:

Change requests: These are documents used to propose changes to a project’s scope or goals

Burndown chart: This chart breaks down tasks on a granular level and visualizes the amount of time remaining

4. Close projects

In the closing phase of the project management lifecycle, you’ll conclude project activities, turn the finished product or service over to its new owners, and assess the things that went well and didn’t go so well. It’ll also be a time to celebrate your hard work.

Steps in the closing phase can include:

Conducting retrospectives and take notes of changes you can implement in the future

Communicating to stakeholders of the end of the project and providing an impact report

Communicating with the new owners of a project

Creating a project closeout report

Celebrating the end of the project and your successes

Tools used in the closing phase include:

Impact report: This report compiles a series of metrics that showcase how your project made a difference and is presented to your stakeholders.

Project closeout report: A project closeout report provides a summary of your project’s accomplishments, and provides key learnings for future project managers to reference.

The following video provides an overview of the project management lifecycle. This is a preview of the Google Project Management Professional Certification .

How to explore the project management lifecycle

Exploring the project management lifecycle more extensively can be a great way to familiarize yourself with this process, discover how it works in real-life situations, and build a foundation for using the lifecycle in the future. Here are three ways you can learn more:

Read project management books.

Reading books is a low-cost way to gain insight into the project management lifecycle and project management in general in your spare time.

Read more: 12 Project Management Books for Beginners

Take online courses or watch tutorials.

Online courses and tutorials offer a visual way to grasp key project management concepts, including the four lifecycle phases.

Network with project managers.

Engaging in discussions with other project managers allows you to gain first-hand accounts of how the project lifecycle works. By building relationships and creating community with other project managers, you can ask questions, get practical tips, and potentially observe projects in action.

Not ready to take classes or jump into a project yet? Consider subscribing to our weekly newsletter, Career Chat . It's a low-commitment way to stay current with industry trends and skills you can use to guide your career path.

Sharpen your project management skills with Coursera

Mastering all steps of the project management lifecycle is an ongoing process that will continue throughout your career. Learning the formal aspects—the tools, steps, and vocabulary used in the process—can set you up for success in your beginning days as a project manager.

If you’re interested in deepening your knowledge of project management, consider the Google Project Management: Profe ssional Certificate to learn job-ready project management skills at your own pace.

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