The process of Life Cycle Management

Explained step by step

In our previous blog, we explained what Life Cycle Management is and why it is important to include it in your project portfolio. In this blog, we explain the phases of Life Cycle Management in more detail.

The process of Life Cycle Management

In many cases, the process of Life Cycle Management is similar to Portfolio Management: it is also a change process that follows the Plan-do-check-act process.

It begins with Gaining Insight

  • Everything starts with gaining insight and overview. In this phase
  • you map the assets. So that could be applications, a fleet of vehicles, buildings, etc.
    capture the relevant data about those assets. Think about status, risks and financial aspects. But also who uses the assets, in which processes they are used and so on.

Then the insights gained from this inventory are translated into plans.

Plans roughly consist of three types:

  1. Management. These are updates and maintenance.
  2. Replacement. These are major updates, replacement with a similar asset or upgrades and large-scale rebuilding/renovation projects. This does not require the asset to have the same vendor. This includes replacing one ERP system with another.
  3. Phase-out/transformation. In this process, assets are no longer replaced, but a drastically new form is chosen for the execution of processes.

Life cycle management plans cover several years and involve the entire asset landscape. Identifying plans can be done, based on the life phase of the assets or theme-based. For example, consider the theme ‘Improve information security’: this requires certain KPIs to be achieved and certain applications to be modified. This is expressed in projects to bring about the changes.

Plans are nice, but they must be executed to achieve the intended results. For this, you deploy Portfolio- Project management to execute the defined changes and thereby achieve the defined KPIs.

You track this execution by measuring progress. You monitor periodically

  • Whether the projects will be implemented as expected
  • Whether the costs and hours fit within the estimate.
  • Whether the predetermined KPIs are achieved on time.

Evaluate
An LCM process, like all processes, must be periodically adapted to new needs and requirements. It is therefore a good idea to periodically review not only the life cycle of the asset, but also the LCM process itself.

Want to know more about how FCC supports Life Cycle Management? Request a personal demo here :