The PMBOK® Guide defines project management knowledge
areas and Process Groups as:
·
Project Integration
Management,
the processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are
properly coordinated. It consists of project plan development, project plan
execution, and overall change control.
·
Project Scope Management,
the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work
required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. It
consists of initiation, scope planning, scope definition, scope verification,
and scope change control.
·
Project Time Management,
the processes required to ensure timely completion of the project. It consists
of activity definition, activity sequencing, activity duration estimating,
schedule development, and schedule control.
·
Project Cost Management,
the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the
approved budget. It consists of resource planning, cost estimating, cost
budgeting, and cost control.
·
Project Quality
Management,
the processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for
which it was undertaken. It consists of quality planning, quality assurance,
and quality control.
·
Project Human Resource
Management,
the processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved
with the project. It consists of organizational planning, staff acquisition,
and team development.
·
Project Communications
Management,
the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection,
dissemination, storage, and ultimate disposition of project information. It
consists of communications planning, information distribution, performance
reporting, and administrative closure.
·
Project Risk Management,
the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing, and responding to project
risk. It consists of risk identification, risk quantification, risk response
development, and risk response control.
·
Project Procurement
Management,
the processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the
performing organization. It consists of procurement planning, solicitation
planning, solicitation, source selection, contract administration, and contract
close-out.
·
Professional
Responsibility,
the tasks, knowledge, and skills required to ensure integrity, contribute to
knowledge base, apply professional knowledge, balance stakeholder interest, and
respect differences.
·
Initiating,
The Initiating phase of the project lifecycle is where the
project gets defined and authorized by management. The inputs to this phase are
usually a statement of work or a contract given to you by the project sponsor.
Other inputs are the environmental factors of your organization such as
policies, procedures, and cultures to name a few. The output of the Initiating
process is a Project Charter and a Preliminary Project Scope Statement.
·
Planning,
As you've probably guessed, the inputs to the Planning Process
is the Project Charter and the Preliminary Project Scope Statement that were
the outputs of the Initiating Process. The purpose of the Planning Process is
to refine the project objectives and then plan the steps necessary to achieve
those objectives within the project scope that was given. The output of the
Planning Process is the Project Management Plan.
·
Execution
The Executing Process Group takes the Project Management Plan as
input. It is here that people and other resources are combined with the Project
Management Plan to carry out, or execute, the plan for the project. As you can
imagine, the outputs of this process are the project deliverables, any changes
such as change requests, preventive actions, defect repairs, and performance
information about how the project plan performed.
·
Monitoring and Control
Throughout the project there is a need to control change and
monitor that the project is on time and on budget while still producing a
quality deliverable. The Monitoring and Controlling Process group is where
these actions take place. It is here that project change requests get approved
or rejected, that defect repairs are approved, and that any updates to the
Project Scope and Project Management Plan are reviewed and approved. This is
the process group that is ultimately responsible for approving the final
deliverables of the project.
·
Closing
After all the deliverables of the project are created, the
closing process group still has to close the overall project and provide the
deliverables to the customer. The inputs to this process group are the
administrative and contract closeout procedures. You may have had an internal
or external vendor that supplied part of the deliverables that needs to get
paid. You may have a asset management systems that you now need to update with
the new product. You may have other procedures and accounts that need to be
updated. It is here that formal acceptance of the product or service is
obtained from the customer and a orderly close to the project occurs.
