End to End Project Management : All You Need to Know

By 2026, the market for project management software will be $4535.5 million. Even though the word "management" is simple and perhaps used the most frequently around us, we always struggle with time management, work-life balance, and project management.

Although you have a list of duties, you must figure out how to assign them to different people. It takes time to recognise a person's strengths and assign jobs correctly, and let's be honest: you can only do some things at a time. Project management is where you unquestionably require a project manager or team of project managers at certain stages of a project.

Therefore, you have come to the perfect place if you are new to project management or want to learn everything there is to know about it.

What Is Project Management?

As the term refers, project management is the strategy or method to deliver certain requirements in a specific, measurable and managed way. Measurables can be the cost, scope, or quality of the requirements defined by the client or stakeholders. 

Then, what is E2E project management? Nothing to worry about; it's just a process of managing the project from Scratch to Delivery and sometimes until user acceptance and support are provided. 

Now that you have an idea of E2E project management, let's dive into the depth of Project Management and learn through it.

E2E Project Management Lifecycle

E2E project management has different phases based on various industries. We will be talking about IT project management.

Initiation

When a project idea comes to the team's chiefs, the project initiates there. First, a rough headcount of the team is taken, and the project managers are assigned to initiate the project, which in simple words, includes taking the requirements from the client, deciding the stakeholders, choosing the right team to work on, and dividing the tasks. But it might sound more complicated. 

Project initiation is the most critical part, as the end result and the project scope depend entirely on this step. 

So let's see what essential steps does Initiation phase includes:

Planning

Also, the technology used for the software or application will be decided under the scope of the project. The platform it can run on is covered under scope as well.

While you are planning the deliverables of a project, the golden triangle of project management might help your teammates understand the project's workflow and how the project's cost, scope, and time correlate to each other entity and affect the project quality and deliverables directly.

It has three sequences to be mindful of:

We must decide the scope, cost, and budget schedule to manage these three measurables. If due to some unavoidable circumstances, the project affects, then the team and stakeholders should be ready for a compromise in terms of the other two constraints.

While you are planning the deliverables of a project, the golden triangle of project management might help your teammates to understand the workflow of the project and how the cost, scope and time of the project correlates to each other entity and affects the project quality and deliverables directly.

It has three sequences to be mindful of:

1. If there is a compromise in the Schedule(timeline) of the project then Scope and Cost effects for the project.

2. If there is a compromise in the project’s scope of the project then the timelines and and Cost effects.

3. If there is a compromise in the project’s cost of the project then the scope might differ and timeline effects, and eventually affects the quality.

To manage these three mesurables, it’s important that we decide the scope, cost and the schedule of the budget. If in case, due to some unavoidable circumstances, project affects then the team and stakeholders should be ready for a compromise in terms of other two constraints.

When the project managers are finished with the project's initial phase, they move to make an extended project plan, which is a very tedious and vital task. A project plan includes some significant challenges.

Development

After extensive planning, the project gradually moves to the development phase, depending on the methodology used. For example, if the project uses Agile methodology, they primarily work in the sprints and continuously develop and deploy the project pieces. 

If the project approach is a waterfall, they develop the project in one stretch and then hand it over to the testing team to move towards the delivery. We will discuss the project management methodologies in detail further in the article.

When the project is in the development phase, the project manager assigns tasks to the development team according to their skills and capabilities. Project Managers also keep a check on resources such as Tools or Technology required for Backend, Frontend developers to develop the necessary application/software.

Execution

The execution phase is when the team deploys their work to the assigned plan. In this phase, the project manager keeps track of the project's final budget and tries to mitigate the potential risk. If a potential threat to the delivery is found, then they slow down the process and try to manage the risks. If the risk is supposed to hamper the deadline of the project, then they find a solution to fix it as soon as possible, with a few changes in cost or scope, to deliver quickly. 

During project execution, the project manager collaborates with the team to maintain a good relationship and understand if anything affects the project deadlines.

And then, the project is moved toward the production environment after the functional, regression, and UAT testing, which is a crucial step in the process of E2E project management to avoid the production bugs and loopholes of the developed project.

Monitoring

The monitoring phase is optional to be completed at the end of the project. It is a continuous process monitored by the project manager with each step. Project managers conduct a few tasks which give them the visibility of project improvement or any problem occurred:

Closing and Delivering

When the project is finally finished, the team and project manager deliver the project to production, hand it over to the client, and ensure their expectations are fulfilled with the project delivery. If any concerns or defects are raised after the delivery, then those changes are considered a Production Bug, on which the team reworks and makes sure it doesn't occur again.

The Official Closure of Project: Project is officially closed when the client accepts the delivery with no questions or concerns raised. When it is closed, the manager closes the documents and hands their stakes to the stakeholders. During the closure of the project, the project manager ought to make sure that they count the achievements and celebrate the team's success to promote their skills for the future as well.

Performance Evaluation: After the project is closed, the company conducts an event to evaluate the project's performance. While evaluating, the project manager determines how many goals have been achieved. In addition, if the project was ever delayed, it didn't hamper the scope and quality. 

The E2E project management doesn't end here. It has more in the bucket while these essential phases are in the process, which mainly lies in the basket of the project manager:

Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder management is maintaining good relationships with the people who will directly or indirectly affect the project—communicating with them correctly without any technical glitches. However, stakeholder management includes more than maintaining good terms. The project management has to understand the role of each stakeholder and how they will impact the process. Here are a few key points to keep in mind while managing stakeholders:

Risk Management

When starting a project, you also need to think about the negative scenarios. That could be wrong for the project, which is known as a risk in the project. Risk management has two primary components:

Risk management is managing risks, which can be anything related to cost, scope, or project schedule.

Risk acceptance is the process where you are aware of the particular risks involved in the project, but you have to accept them, finding the scope more relatable to their targeted audience. 

For example, if a technical solution or application requires high-end support or the latest settings, the risk acceptance would be the audience needing the necessary latest mobile phone.

There is a step-by-step process to identify and manage the potential risks:

These are the critical steps taken during ensuing End to End project management. But there are other things to be mindful of during project management. So first, let's look at the global project methodologies.

RAID in Project Management

RAID - Risk, Assumption, Issue, Dependency

Risk: As we discussed above, the risk is a factor that might affect the project functionality, causing an impact on project scope, deadline, or cost, ultimately leading to a change in the quality of the project.

Assumption: The assumption can be true or hypothetical. But when we are talking in terms of project management. Assumptions are essential to create a project plan.

Issues: An issue occurs during the plan or the project. 

Dependency: A dependency is a deliverable or a task due to which other pipeline tasks are affected. 

Change Management

Change management refers to the changes required in tools and processes in project management. It's not a common approach, yet it's crucial when there are sudden or additional changes in project requirements. 

There are 4 types of Change Management:

Project Management Methodologies

There is no rule of thumb to use any one methodology for managing a project. It varies depending on the type of project in your queue. But when you are entering a project, it is a big question, which project methodology is the best? Well, there is no specific answer for that, but there are a few methodologies used worldwide:

Agile Methodology

Agile is one of the most used methods in IT project management. Agile focuses on MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and works towards it progressively by continuously developing and deploying the projects in pieces. That is how it becomes different from the conventional waterfall method.   

The agile methodology works in sprints which consist of 8-12 days per sprint. During this, Scrum Framework and Scrum Rituals are followed to keep track of the project scope.

The workflow of agile is:

Ideation > Sprints > Iteration > Release > Production > Retirement 

The nature of Agile is:

Waterfall Methodology

The Waterfall Methodology is the conventional approach to project management. The tasks are completed sequentially and linearly in this method. The last stage must be completed before the next stage starts, which is a significant drawback if you are handling a bigger project for which you need a progressive approach.

The workflow of the Waterfall Method:

The nature of this project methodology is as follows:

Lean Methodology

Lean is another Project Management that focuses on maximising value and minimising waste.

The nature of Lean Methodology is:

These are the three principal project methodologies used all around the IT industry. There are some other methodologies available in the market as well. Depending on your project requirements, you know how to choose the best.

Now that you know about project management methodologies, let's talk about some of the best tools to satisfy your next curiosity.

Project Management Tools

With the continuous rise and competition in IT, many intelligent tools are available for your project management. So, let's select the best project management tool for your project:

Jira

Atlassian Jira is one of the best tools for project management available in the market due to its collaborative nature. It's easy and quick for anyone to handle. In addition, numerous features inbuilt for project management make it one of the best tools, specifically if you follow Agile Methodology.

It helps for:

Trello

Trello is an online project management software that provides built-in collaboration tools to work with your teams. It is very simple to use. The user and Kanban boards are very straightforward for organising your project tasks. The team can collaborate through cards, shared files, etc.

It is an excellent and very cost-effective tool to use for your project management tasks.

Notion

Notion is yet another brilliant collaborative and project management tool. It has inbuilt templates to manage each bit of your project. All you have to do is enter the relevant information, and there you go. It's ready to keep track of your project team's task lists.

Zoho Projects

Zoho projects is a popular project management software that keeps track of your project's tasks, collaborates wisely, and runs intuitive reports. This tool also provides features of Gantt charts for the project and the capacity to work on multiple projects simultaneously. In addition, it has a very impressive communication suite, including real-time chat forums.

Wrike

Wrike is a cloud-based project management tool that provides ease to project planning and helps you to keep track of your project tasks. It also offers features like Gantt Chart, task management, newsfeed, and more. In addition, it has numerous integrations to make it a powerful collaborative tool.

Takeaways

End-to-end project management is an essential process. Furthermore, it guarantees that all project goals are met. Although the approach varies from project to project, a structure is followed that is essentially the same for all initiatives, from gathering requirements to carrying them out.

The key to each project is E2E project management, regardless of the results. It aids in creativity, planning, project development, and project control. Instead of criticizing later, this is a chance to preserve the life of your client's expectations. Additionally, you can learn from this experience and avoid the mistakes you made with your initial projects in the future.

Read More: Trello or Jira? What's Better For Project Management