6. Every project life cycle contains five steps:

Initiation Planning Implementation Monitoring/Control Closure

Read about a project a US company carried out in Argentina. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate phase name.

A US construction company won a contract to design and build the first copper mine in northern Argentina. During the …………… phase of the project, the project manager focused on defining and finding a project leadership team with the knowledge, skills, and experience to manage a large complex project in a remote area of the globe.

During the …………… phase, the project team developed an integrated project schedule that coordinated the activities of the design, procurement, and construction teams. The project controls team also developed a detailed budget that enabled the project team to track project expenditures against the expected expenses.

During the …………… phase, the project team accomplished the work defined in the plan and made adjustments when the project factors changed. Equipment and materials were delivered to the work site, labour was hired and trained, a construction site was built, and all the construction activities, from the arrival of the first dozer to the installation of the final light switch, were accomplished.

The …………… phase included turning over the newly constructed plant to the operations team of the client. A list of a few remaining construction items was developed and those items completed.

7. Study the collocations with the verb get which are often used to talk about a project.

get off the ground get through get down the stretch

get across the finish line

Which project phases do you think they refer to? Fill in the gaps with appropriate collocations.

1. It took us two months to negotiate a deal with Powell Industries but we’ve finally got …………… .

2. The renewable energy industry must be allowed to get …………… .

3. I’ll …………… college in five years instead of four.

4.

8. Meetings are central to project management. Most meetings have an agenda - a list of matters to be discussed in the meeting.

Imagine that you are the chairperson in a meeting. It is the start of the meeting and you are telling your colleagues about the items on the agenda. What phrases might you use?

9. Now you're going to listen to two audio clips about setting agendas for meetings (Recording 3.5). Both clips are from the start of meetings and feature a chairperson listing the points on the agenda. As you listen, fill in the gaps with some of the phrases above.

Clip 1
Sarah:	……………, Alex, ……………. …………………………for our public relations meeting are the research project, the launch of the website, the timeline for press releases, and the executive of the year award. Are you quite happy with those points?
Alex:	Yeah, that's fine. If you could ……………, that'd be great.
Clip 2
Alex:	……………. Let's keep this meeting fairly brief, really ……………. First of all, as you can see, the news on the book re-launch; and secondly, the office move; and finally, we'll have a little bit of time for …………….