PMP Knowledge Areas and Process Groups

The PMBOK® Guide defines project management knowledge areas and Process Groups as:

Knowledge areas

·         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.

Process Groups

·         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.