If a project has a beginning and an end, what is its life cycle and how is it managed? To be effective and workable, project methodologies should be appropriate to the task and the organization. For simple projects in a small organization, agreed milestones, a few checklists and someone to steer the project are all that are required. For complex projects in a large organization, a more structured approach is needed, to set up and approve the project, monitor and guides its progress, solve its problems, deliver the end product (or gain) and close it down. In order to understand the methodology we need to look at the project life cycle. The detailed life cycle will be dependent upon the size and type of organization and the size and type of the project. However, in outline they all have very similar elements.