Chapter 40: Summary - Project Management Process Groups

Not all project management processes apply to all projects or project phases. Process groups can overlap and interact. Forty-two project management processes are contained within the five project management process groups:
1. Initiating
2. Planning
3. Executing
4. Monitoring and controlling
5. Closing

Initiating Process Group

The Initiating Process Group Formally authorizes new project or project phase. The two processes in it are:
1. Develop project charter - Authorizing project or project phase. The project charter defines the project’s purpose, identifies objectives, and authorizes the project manager to start the project.
2. Identify stakeholders - Documents all of the people or organizations that have an interest in the outcome of the project and their level of interest, impact, and involvement.

Planning Process Group

The Planning Process Group Defines objectives and plans course of action required to meet objectives and project scope. It also facilitates project planning across process groups. The Processes in the Planning Process Group are:
1. Develop project management plan - Primary source for how project is planned, executed, monitored, controlled, and closed. It’s an iterative and ongoing process often resulting in changes to the project management plan. This progressive detailing is called rolling wave planning.
2. Collect requirements - Documenting the stakeholders’ needs to meet the project objectives.
3. Define scope - Developing a detailed project scope.
4. Create WBS - Subdividing major project deliverables and project work into smaller, more manageable components.
5. Define activities - Identifying specific activities to be performed to produce project deliverables.
6. Sequence activities - Identifying and documenting dependencies among schedule activities.
7. Estimate activity resources - Type and quantity of resources required to perform each schedule activity.
8. Estimate activity durations - Number of work periods needed to complete individual schedule activities.
9. Develop schedule - Analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource requirements, and schedule constraints to create project schedule.
10. Estimate costs - Developing approximation of costs of resources needed to complete project activities.
11. Determine budget - Aggregating estimated costs of individual activities to establish cost baseline.
12. Plan quality - Identifying relevant quality standards and determining how to satisfy them.
13. Develop human resource plan - Identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
14. Plan communications - Determining stakeholder communication needs.
15. Plan risk management - Deciding how to approach, plan, and execute risk management activities.
16. Identify risks - Determining which risks might affect the project and documenting their characteristics.
17. Perform qualitative risk analysis - Prioritizing risks for subsequent further analysis by assessing and combining their probabilities of occurrence and impacts.
18. Perform quantitative risk analysis - Numerically analyzing the effect on project objectives of identified risks.
19. Plan risk responses - Developing options to enhance opportunities and reduce threats to project objectives.
20. Plan procurements - Documenting products, services, and results requirements and identifying potential sellers.

Executing Process Group

The Executing Process Group Integrates resources to carry out project management plan. The processes in this group are
1. Direct and manage project execution - Directing technical and organization interfaces to execute work defined in project management plan.
2. Perform quality assurance - Applying planned, systematic quality activities to ensure project employs processes needed to meet requirements.
3. Acquire project team - Obtaining human resources needed to complete project.
4. Develop project team - Development improves competencies and interaction of team members.
5. Manage project team - Tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and coordinating changes to enhance project performance.
6. Distribute information - Providing information to stakeholders in a timely manner.
7. Manage stakeholder expectations - Managing stakeholder expectations to satisfy their requirements and resolve issues.
8. Conduct procurements - Obtaining seller responses, selecting sellers, and awarding contracts.

Monitoring and Controlling Process Group

The Monitoring & Controlling Process Group Monitors progress to identify variances from the project management plan so corrective action can be taken to meet project objectives. The processes in this group are:
1. Monitor and control project work - Collecting, measuring, and disseminating performance information and assessing measurements and trends to affect process improvements. Includes risk monitoring to ensure risks are identified early, their statuses reported, and risk plans executed. Monitoring includes status reporting, progress measurement, and forecasting.
2. Perform integrated change control - Ensure changes are beneficial; determine whether a change has occurred; and manage approved changes, including when they occur. Performed throughout project life cycle.
3. Verify scope - Acceptance of completed project deliverables.
4. Control scope - Controlling changes to project scope.
5. Control schedule - Controlling changes to project schedule.
6. Control costs - Influencing factors that create variances and controlling changes to project budget.
7. Perform quality control - Monitoring project results to determine compliance with quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate unsatisfactory performance.
8. Report performance - Collecting and distributing performance information, including status reporting, progress measurement, and forecasting.
9. Monitor and control risks - Tracking identified risks, monitoring risks, identifying new risks, executing risk response plans, and evaluating their effectiveness throughout the project life cycle.
10. Administer procurements - Managing contract between buyer and seller, reviewing and documenting seller performance, and managing contractual relationship with outside buyer of project.

Closing Process Group

The Closing Process Group Formalizes acceptance of product, service, or result and brings project or project phase to an end. The processes in this group are:
1. Close project or phase - Finalizing all activities across process groups to formally close project or project phase.
2. Close procurements - Completing each procurement, including resolution of open items, and closing each procurement relevant to project or project phase.

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Next: Chapter 41

Chapter 10: Project Integration Management in Project Planning Phase

Aim: To understand the Process that falls under Project Integration Management. i.e., “Develop the Project Management Plan”

The project management plan process covers all activities that identify and direct the actions of many other processes in the planning process group. Developing the project management plan includes coordinating the development of the subsidiary plans and incorporating them into the complete project plan. The main purpose of the project management plan is to define how the project is to progress from its beginning to completion.

In short, the project management plan provides the high-level game plan for how the project moves through its lifecycle. PMI defines many potential subsidiary plans that make up the overall project management plan. These subsidiary plans provide the specific details for managing each aspect of the project from initiation through closure. The subsidiary project management plans could include

• Project scope management plan
• Requirements management plan
• Schedule management plan
• Cost management plan
• Quality management plan
• Process improvement plan
• Human resource plan
• Communication management plan
• Risk management plan
• Procurement management plan

One of the more common mistakes inexperienced project managers make is to confuse a project plan with a project schedule. The output from many common project management software packages do not qualify as a project plan. They are a good start, but a true project plan is made up of much more information than just scheduling information. This process requires a focused effort to create a plan that incorporates all known information about a project.

The Table below shows the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs for the develop project management plan process.

Develop Project Management Plan
Inputs	Tools & Techniques	Outputs
Project charter Outputs from planning processes Enterprise environmental factors Organizational process assets	Expert Judgment	Project Management Plan

Exam Watch:
You will see “expert judgment” listed as a tool and technique for several processes. The meaning of “expert judgment” is specific to each process. In the context of the develop the project management plan process, expert judgment includes
• Tailor the process to meet the project needs
• Develop technical and management details to be included in the project management plan
• Determine resources and skill levels needed to perform project work
• Define the level of configuration management to apply to the project
• Determine which project documents are subject to the formal change control process

You can learn more about the Develop Project Management Plan process by Clicking Here

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Next: Chapter 11

Chapter 9: Understanding PMI’s Planning Process Group

Aim – To provide an overview of the PMI’s Planning Process Group.

After you have completed the initiating processes you are ready to start planning your project. This means that you possess formal authorization to conduct the work of the project. But you won’t know what to do without a plan. Planning answers a few very important questions. What work will you do? What exactly are you trying to accomplish?
To answer these questions, start from what you know. There are three outputs from the initiating process group processes. Always start with the information necessary to proceed. Recall that PMI refers to this initial information for each process as the process’s inputs. The three outputs from the initiating processes are
• The project charter
• The stakeholder register
• The stakeholder management strategy

Armed with these initiating documents you can start the planning processes. In a nutshell, you follow each of the planning processes to refine the project documents from these outputs. As you develop the planning documents, always remember how the various processes are related.

Think of the initiating progress group as the processes that answer the ‘“what’” and ‘“why”’ questions. The planning processes answer the ‘“how”’ questions. The planning processes result in outputs that explain how the project will progress toward reaching its goals.

Exam Watch:
The Planning Process Group is by far the largest group and has many processes. So, be prepared to answer many questions in this area on the exam. After all, planning process group questions make up 23% of the PMP exam.

PMI is very explicit in stressing the importance of planning. Far too many projects suffer from the poor practice of starting work before anyone really knows what needs to be done. This almost always results in wasted effort and lost time. Proper planning requires good communication among the team and sound leadership from the project manager. The result of solid planning is a project team that is more informed and prepared to carry out the work required to meet the project’s goals. You should expect to see several questions on the exam that require you to understand the importance of fully planning before starting work.

Because planning is such a large process group, the subsequent chapters in this section wil cover the following topics:
• Integration
• Scope
• Schedule
• Cost
• Communications
• Risk
• Quality
• Procurement
• Human resources

The main purpose of planning is to provide a framework to gather information to produce a project management plan. In fact, the plan itself is really a collection of other plans. The majority of activities in the planning group center around developing the supporting documents that comprise the final project management plan. As more detailed information is learned about the project, the overall plan becomes more complete and the stakeholders’ confidence in the project increases.

Planning is an iterative group of processes as well. As the project progresses it often becomes necessary to modify the plan due to any number of reasons. Unexpected results, delays, outside factors, and internal factors can all require additional planning. Any scope changes are likely to require one or more planning processes to be revisited. Don’t assume that planning is only accomplished once. The exam requires that you understand how planning is iterative throughout a project.

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Next: Chapter 10

Points to Remember: Project Integration Management

Integration Management Knowledge Area:

The Integration Management knowledge area brings all of the process groups together. A project manager has to integrate the work of everyone on the team through all of these major activities to keep the project on track:

1. Being authorized by the project charter to control the budget and assign resources
2. Planning all of the work that’s going to happen throughout the project.
3. Directing the work once it gets started
4. Monitoring the way the work progresses and looking for potential problems
5. Looking out for changes, understanding their impacts, and making sure they don’t derail the project
6. Closing out the project and making sure that there are no loose ends when it’s over

Initiating a Project:

1. The project charter officially sanctions the project. Without a charter, the project cannot begin.
2. The sponsor is the person (or people) responsible for paying for the project and is part of all important project decisions.
3. Develop Project Charter is the very first process performed in a project.
4. The project charter gives the project manager authority to do the project work, and to assign work or take control of project resources for the duration of the project. It also gives the project manager authority to spend money and use other company resources.
5. The business case tells everyone why the company should do the project. The project charter tells everyone that the project actually started, explains what it’s going to deliver, and authorizes the project manager to do the work.
6. The project charter does not include details about what will be produced or how. Instead, it contains the summary milestone schedule.
7. Two inputs to Develop Project Charter are the contract and the statement of work. The contract is what you agreed to do, although not all projects have a contract. The statement of work lists all of the deliverables that you and your team need to produce.
8. Enterprise Environmental Factors tell you how your company does business. An important one is the work authorization system, which determines how work is assigned, and makes sure that tasks are done in the right order.
9. Organizational Process Assets tell you how your company normally runs projects. One of the most important assets is lessons learned, which is where you write down all of the valuable historical information that you learn throughout the project to be used later.


Planning a Project:

1. Remember that the project management plan is formal—which means that it’s written down and distributed to your team.
2. You may get a question on the exam that asks what to do when you encounter a change. You always begin dealing with change by consulting the project management plan.
3. The work authorization system is a part of your company’s Enterprise Environmental Factors, and it’s generally part of any change control system. It defines how work is assigned to people.
4. The project management plan includes baselines: snapshots of the scope, schedule, and budget that you can use to keep track of them as they change.


Project Management Plan — Subsidiary Plans and Baselines:

The project management plan is the core of Integration Management. It’s your main tool for running a project. It consists of many subsidiary plans and baselines that will be used throughout the life of your project.

1. The scope management plan describes how scope changes are handled—like what to do when someone needs to add or remove a feature to a service or product your project produces.
2. The requirements management plan describes how you’ll gather, document, and manage the stakeholders’ needs, and how you’ll meet those needs with the project deliverables.
3. The schedule management plan shows you how to deal with changes to the schedule, like updated deadlines or milestones.
4. The cost management plan tells you how you’ll create the budget, and what to do when your project runs into money problems.
5. The quality management plan deals with problems that could arise when a product doesn’t live up to the customer or client’s standards.
6. You use the human resource plan to deal with changes in your staff, and to identify and handle any additional staffing needs and constraints you might have in your specific project.
7. The communications management plan lists all of the ways that you communicate with your project’s team, stakeholders, sponsors, and important contacts related to the project.
8. The risk management plan is about detailing all the bad things that might happen and coming up with a plan to address each risk when and if it occurs.
9. The procurement management plan focuses on dealing with vendors outside of your company.

There are three baselines in the project management plan.

1. The scope baseline is a snapshot of the scope, which helps you keep track of changes to the work that you’ll be doing and the planned deliverables you’ll be building.
2. The schedule baseline does the same for the project schedule, and
3. The cost performance baseline does the same for the budget.


The Monitor and Control Phase of a Project - Up Close

1. You start with information about how the work is being performed.
2. Next you figure out any changes that have to be made to the plans, and repairs that have to be made to the deliverables. Here, you let stakeholders know about the changes, and make sure everyone is in the loop with what you’re doing.
3. Once the changes and repairs are approved by the CCB, you send them back to the team to put them in place.

A change control board (CCB) is a group of people—usually including the sponsor—that approves or rejects changes. Any time a change goes through Integrated Change Control, the CCB decides whether or not it should be made. When they approve the change, you send it on to the team to implement.


Points to Remember - Other Topics:

Introduction to Projects & Project Management
Relationship Between Knowledge Areas & Process Groups
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Human Resource Management
Project Communication Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Ethics & Professional Responsibility