What are Project Phases #
Project phases are simply a way to organize groups of tasks within your project into stages or milestones. Examples of phases might be:
- Foundation, Site-work, Framing, Plumbing & HVAC, Electrical, Carpentry and Finish if you are building a house
- Requirements, Design, Development, Test, Training and Go-live/Support if you are implementing a new software system
- Sprint Cycle 1, Sprint Cycle 2, Sprint Cycle 3 and so on if you are developing using Agile methodology
- Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation and On-boarding if you are using projects to win new business
Phases are normally recommended for larger projects containing more than 40 tasks. There are alternative ways to group tasks within a project including tasks-lists or sub-tasks or milestone tasks. You can use these different options together, for example using phases with a billing milestone at the end of each phase for major deliverables, in conjunction with task-lists or sub-tasks to break up smaller deliverables into individual tasks.
How to Define Project Phases in the Project #
To define phases separately from milestones in your project
- Click on the “MILESTONES” tab
- Click on “Edit Phases” link
- Enter each new phase in the popup. Each phase is a free text input, though you are not allowed to save a project with two phases having the same name.
Phases will appear in the order in which you added them. Delete and re-enter phases to move them up or down.
You can define phases based on milestones so they are directly linked or related to each other.
