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.

Prev: Chapter 39

Next: Chapter 41

Project Initiation

The following are the important themes from the PMI Perspective that you need to remember about the Project Initiation Phase.

1. Project Initiation is the first logical step in Project Management process
2. Initiation formally authorizes a project to begin or to continue to the next phase.
3. Initiation formally links a project to the work to the strategic objectives of the organization.
4. Someone external to the project team and higher up in the organization must issue the project charter. (Usually the Sponsor)
5. The project charter gives the project manager authority to “get the job done.” Yes, you read it right. The Charter is the document that officially gives us the right to do our jobs to manage the Project.
6. The project charter establishes the targets for the project.
7. A signed contract can serve as an input or predecessor to a project charter. Sometimes for small projects, the contract itself can be considered the Charter.
8. The two types of project selection methods are benefit measurement methods and constrained optimization methods.
9. Management by Objectives (MBO) supports project initiation by linking projects to corporate objectives.
10. MBO supports project management through its use of goal-setting and periodic reviews.
11. Many project management activities during initiation are further elaborated during planning.
12. Identifying Stakeholders is one the most important activities in the life of a project. Many a project has been known to fail after months of hard work because the manager failed to identify a critical stakeholder and that stakeholder prevented the sign-off at the end of the Project

Other PMI Themes:

General PMI Themes
Project Framework
Project Planning
Project Execution
Project Monitoring & Controlling
Project Closure
Ethics & Professional Responsibility

Chapter 5: Initiating Process Group

Aim: To understand the Initiating Process Group

The initiating process group is the first step in the project life cycle. In fact, much of the work performed in this process group is actually outside the scope of the actual project being executed. The main purpose of initiating is to authorize a project to begin or continue. Notice that the initiating process group serves two potential roles. It generally occurs at the beginning of a project, but can also occur several more times throughout the life of a project. Some larger projects define specific milestones that require revisiting the initiating processes to continue the project. Invoking the initiating processes at the start of each phase helps keep the project focused on the business need the project was undertaken to address.

The Purpose of Initiating a Project

Initiating usually occurs at the beginning of a project and can also be required at certain points throughout the project. For example, a large project with the goal of producing a prototype of a commercial road car will likely encounter several points along the project life cycle at which important decisions must be made. After the engine and transmission have been produced and joined together, they must be tested to evaluate performance against project goals. If the performance does not meet certain standards, the components must be reworked to meet standards before continuing. Alternatively, the whole project could be terminated if the product is deemed to be unable to effectively meet the project standards. This phase in the project is a crucial go/no-go decision point and constitutes activities in the initiating process group.

Exam Watch:
Although the most common time for these activities to occur is at the beginning of a project, don’t overlook the fact that they can be taken up during the project at any point in time. It is not uncommon for large projects to call for initiating processes several times throughout the project life cycle. Any time you need to assess the progress of a project, reevaluate its merit, and request approval to continue, initiating processes are executed.

In all cases, initiating processes require input from preceding activities. The entities charged with deciding whether to proceed require substantiating information on which to base a decision. When initiating occurs at the beginning of a project, at least some of the input must be created in tasks that are not part of the project. This work predates the project initiation date and can make the actual project start point may seem incorrect. The points in time at which a project begins and ends are referred to as the project boundaries. Because a substantial amount of the inputs to the initiating processes is created outside the scope of the project, the starting boundary can be unclear. A project always starts as a result of a business need, and the business need develops before the project commences. Likewise, any documentation of the need for the project is developed before the actual project starts.

Exam Watch: You need to know the inputs and outputs of each process defined in the PMBOK. That’s 42 separate input and output sets! The exam includes several questions that require you to know process inputs, outputs, and general information flow. Memorizing them may seem like the easier option, but if you understand and rationalize what inputs are required for each process and what outputs it might generate, it would be easier to remember.

Subsequent initiating iterations during the project life cycle will use inputs from preceding activities. It is important to understand that the activities in the initiating process group always result in a critical project decision. The end of the initiating process group is represented by a decision to continue the project, go back and redo some of the work, or terminate the project altogether.

In most projects, you should include any customers and other stakeholders in many of the activities in the initiating process group. Including as many stakeholders as possible in the early project activities fosters a sense of pride and shared ownership of the project. Any stakeholder who feels a sense of ownership is apt to be more diligent about ensuring the project succeeds. Stakeholder participation increases the success of setting the project scope, gathering project requirements, and defining the overall criteria for project success.

The Project Manager Assignment

PMI requires that the project manager be assigned prior to any project planning taking place. Practically speaking the project manager doesn’t have to be assigned until the end of the initiating process group. However, it makes sense to assign the project manager earlier. A project manager who helped create the project charter is more comfortable with a project and has an easier time planning the project.

It is the responsibility of the project initiator, or project sponsor, to officially assign the project manager. After the project managers are assigned, the project charter identifies the project managers and provides them with the authority to carry out project management tasks.

The Project Charter and Its Purpose

The initiating process group consists of two processes. The first process is the development of the project charter, and the second process is identifying stakeholders. The project charter is the initial document that describes the project at a high level and formally authorizes the project. PMI requires that a project charter be created and accepted before a project is considered official for starting. As a PMP, you are required to insist on a project charter before proceeding in the role of project manager.

Exam Watch:
The PMBOK requires a project charter for every project. The lack of a project charter is a project stopper. Remember that you cannot start a project (As per PMI) without a project charter. Even though, there may have been or will be situations where you may be forced to do so, for the exam it is a No-Brainer and no project can start without the approved project charter.

Authorization from the project sponsor, the project management organization (PMO), or portfolio steering committee is necessary for the project manager to allocate resources and actually perform the work of the project. Even before bestowing authorization, the stakeholders must assign the project manager to the project. The project charter provides the framework for carrying out these actions. It is also the first deliverable of the project and sets the basement for the whole project to build on.

There is no standard format for a project charter, but each project charter should address these basic areas:
• Purpose or justification
• Project objectives
• High-level requirements
• Project description
• Risks
• Summary milestone schedule
• Summary budget
• Approval requirements
• Project manager
• Authorizing party

Note: Each area of the project charter provides information on the business need and how the project will meet the need. It is important to have a general understanding of the project charter contents for the exam. Although you aren’t asked specific questions about the project charter’s contents, you are asked questions about the project charter as a whole and its purpose.

Exam Watch:
The PMP exam asks a few questions about the roles of the project initiator, or sponsor, and the project manager. The project initiator starts the official project process. All of the project manager’s authority comes from the project initiator and the initial stakeholders. For this reason, the project charter must be issued by someone with the authority to fund the project and assign resources to it. The project initiator’s role is to describe and authorize the project, assign the project manager, and fund the project. The project manager’s role is to plan and execute the project.

Prev: Chapter 4

Next: Chapter 6

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

Summary - Project Initiation

Let us now summarize whatever we have learnt over the course of the previous few chapters reg. the Project Initiation Phase.

• Organizations start projects for different reasons, such as to meet a business or legal requirement, to take on a business opportunity, or to develop a solution for a problem.
• However, the underlying motivation is always to meet some business objectives in the strategic plan of the organization.
• Three categories of methods are available to select from the proposed projects.
• The first method is the benefit measurement method, which evaluates the benefits from the project.
• Constrained optimization methods focus on the probability of completing the project successfully, and
• Expert judgment relies on expert advice.
• As a project manager, you need to identify each stakeholder: an individual or an organization that is going to gain or lose from the successful completion of your project.
• The initiating project stage is constituted by two processes: Develop Project Charter and Identify Stakeholders.
• The two documents generated by the initiating stage are the project charter, which names and authorizes the project manager, and the stakeholder register, which identifies the project stakeholders and relevant information about them.
• Based on this information, you develop the stakeholder management strategy.
• The project charter also includes project justification based on the business needs and a high-level description of the product or service that the project will offer to meet those business needs.
• Issuing an approved project charter moves the project from the initiation stage into the planning stage, which is composed of a number of processes collectively called the planning process group.
• These processes will be covered in the subsequent chapters.

Previous: Stakeholder Management Strategy

Next: Important Terms & Definitions

Chapter 18: Origins of Projects

Projects often originate from sources external to the project, such as a sponsor or a project management office; internally or externally, by an enterprise or a government agency. A project may originate as a result of one or more of the following categories of reasons:

Business/legal requirements:

This category includes projects based on a business need or a legal requirement. These kind of projects are very common in Banks and financial Institutions. For ex: The Central Banks in every country comes up with new rules and regulations to keep the banking industry and the economy stable. So, if the government comes up with a new rule that every bank has to comply with, the banks may initiate projects that would ensure that they are compliant with the new regulations set by the government.

Market Opportunities:

Projects might be started to take advantage of new Opportunities:
• Those based on the market demand. For example, a car manufacturer begins a project to make electric cars based on high oil prices that the customer cannot afford.
• Those based on a customer request. For example, one of the customers of your company requests a product that could be a source of revenue for the company.
• Strategic opportunity/business need. A project that helps implement the business strategy of the organization. However, all other opportunities taken by the organization must also be aligned with the business strategy.
• Those based on a technological advance. For example, several electronics companies authorized projects to manufacture MP3 players following the invention and popularity of MP3 technology.

Problems/Issues:

Projects are also authorized to offer solutions to certain problems in a company or a country or to address social needs in a society. For example, a bank might feel that its website is crashing too often (say once in 15 days or so) and is causing a lot of inconvenience to its customers. So, they might initiate a new project that would look into the shortcomings of the existing system and rectify it.

Ecological impact:

Some industries cause harm to the environment and the ecology where their factories are built. For ex: A Leather Factory might start a new factory to clean up the toxics released from the factory so that, the damage on the River could be minimized.

Social needs

Governmental or nongovernmental organizations initiate projects to satisfy some social needs, such as a project to provide fresh drinking water in an underprivileged community or a project to set up latrines and a sewer system in a village. These kinds of projects based on social needs are often run by nonprofit organizations or by the Government itself. Even if not for profit, the projects in such organizations are also linked to the business needs of the organization because in order to perform the projects, the organization must survive, and in order to survive, the organization must work according to its strategic business plan.

The sources of project requests can vary widely in different organizations. Depending upon your organization, the origins of projects might be inside the organization, outside the organization, or both. Regardless of these sources, an organization performs a project to meet some business objectives in the organization’s strategic plan. So the strategic plan of an organization is still the grand origin of all projects in most cases.

Previous: Introduction to Project Initiation

Next: Understanding Project Selections

Chapter 17: Introduction to Project Initiation

As you learned in the previous section on Introduction to Project Management, you manage projects through processes. You also learned that a process has an input, uses some tools and techniques, and produces output. You manage the initiation of a project through a process group called the initiating process group, which consists of two processes: Develop Project Charter and Identify Stakeholders. Before you can initiate a project, it must originate from somewhere.

In this section (a bunch of chapters) we will be looking at one big question:

How is a Project Initiated?

So, lets get started!!!

Initiating a Project:

Initiating a project means defining the project, getting approval from people to start it, and identifying and analyzing the project stakeholders. During this stage the initial scope of the project is defined. Accordingly, initial resources are determined and allocated, a project manager with an appropriate authority level is assigned, and project stakeholders are identified.

Defining the project includes the following tasks:

1. Developing project objectives and describing how they are related to the organization’s business objectives and strategy. (Remember the Project/Program/Portfolio Relationship chapter?)
2. Specifying the project deliverables, such as products, services, or results, that will meet the objectives of starting this project.
3. Based on the objectives and deliverables, defining the initial scope of the project by explaining what will be done and drawing boundaries around what will be done and what will not be done.
4. Based on the initial scope, estimating the project duration and the resources needed. Only an Initial estimate would be made so that resources can be procured accordingly. An even accurate estimate would be made during the planning phase
5. Defining the success criteria. The project definition is incomplete without defining its success.
6. Assigning the initial project resources.
7. Assigning a project manager if one is not already assigned.
8. Authorizing the project. While different organizations may have a different process to approve the processes, the standard way to do it is to approve the document that holds the definition of the project, such as the project charter.

Note: The processes in the initiating process group, just like any other process group, can also be used to initiate a phase of a project that has multiple phases.

Based on the project definition, you will identify the project stakeholders.

Look at the image below and you will understand the process of how inputs are provided to create the project charter.

Every organization has a business strategy and based on the business needs, someone in the top management writes down a statement of work and makes a business case. This business case and the statement of work are the starting points to develop the initial project scope and thereby determine what needs to be done in order to meet the business strategy. All these things go into the Project Charter which in turn is an input to the process of identifying the Stakeholders. Remember the chapter on Project Stakeholders?

Trivia:
It’s a good policy to involve customers and other important stakeholders in the initiation stage of the project. It gives them the feeling of shared ownership that will greatly contribute to the success of the project by positively influencing factors such as deliverable acceptance and stakeholder satisfaction.

In the next chapter, we will ponder more about the origin of projects and how they are initiated!!!

Previous: Important Terms - Introduction to Project Management

Next: Origin of Projects

Chapter 6: The Project Lifecycle

In the previous chapter, we learnt what a process is and the fact that, they are used widely in the project management lifecycle. In this chapter, we are going to understand the project lifecycle.

So, lets get started!!!

Project Lifecycle:

From initiation/authorization to completion/closure, a project goes through a whole lifecycle that includes defining the project objectives, planning the work to achieve those objectives, performing the actual work, monitoring and controlling the progress, and closing the project after receiving the product acceptance or after cancellation of the project.
The below picture depicts the relation between the various stages in a projects lifecycle. Each of these stages is a process group and there are a variety of processes involved in each of these stages.

Let us now take a detailed look at these stages, one by one:

Initiating a Project:

This stage defines and authorizes the project. The project manager is named, and the project is officially launched through a signed document called the project charter, which contains items such as the purpose of the project, a high-level product description, a summary of the milestone schedule, and a business case for the project. Another outcome of this stage is a document called the stakeholder register, which identifies the project stakeholders and important information about them. The processes used to perform this stage fall into a group called the initiating process group.

Trivia:
The term high-level means lacking details or not including the details. This term will be used frequently and its good to know what it means. A high level activity would usually involved a detailed activity usually worked out through a process called progressive elaboration which we covered a couple of chapters back.

Planning a Project:

In this stage, you as the project manager, along with the project management team, refine the project objectives and requirements and develop the project management plan, which is a collection of several plans that constitute a course of actions required to achieve the objectives and meet the requirements of the project. The project scope is finalized with the project scope statement. The project management plan, the outcome of this stage, contains subsidiary plans, such as a project scope management plan, a schedule management plan, and a quality management plan. The processes used to perform this stage fall into a group called the planning process group.

Executing a Project:

In this stage, you as the project manager, implement the project management plan, and the project team performs the work scheduled in the planning stage. You coordinate all the activities being performed to achieve the project objectives and meet the project requirements. Of course, the main output of any project is the project deliverables. Approved changes, recommendations, and defect repairs are also implemented in this stage. But where do these changes and recommendations come from? They arise from monitoring and controlling the project. The stakeholders can also suggest changes, which must go through an approval process before implementation. The project execution is performed using the processes that fall into a group called the executing process group.

Monitoring and controlling:

You monitor and control the project through its lifecycle, including the execution stage. Monitoring and controlling includes defending the project against scope creep (unapproved changes to the project scope), monitoring the project progress and performance to identify variance from the plan, and recommending preventive and corrective actions to bring the project in line with the planned expectations in the approved project management plan. Requests for changes, such as change to the project scope, are also included in this stage; they can come from you or from any other project stakeholder. The changes must go through an approval process, and only the approved changes are implemented. The processes used in this stage fall into a group called the monitoring and controlling process group.

Closing a Project:

In this stage, you manage the formal acceptance of the project product, close any contracts involved, and bring the project to an end by disbanding the project team. Closing the project includes conducting a project review for lessons learned and possibly turning over the outcome of the project to another group, such as the maintenance or operations group.
This stage is applicable even for Terminated/Cancelled Projects. Terminated projects (that is, projects cancelled before completion) should also go through the closing stage. The processes used to perform the closing stage fall into the group called the closing process group.
Don’t forget the last, but not the least, task of the closing stage: Project Closure Party!!!

Trivia:
What we refer to as project stages here are not actually the project phases. A project phase is part of the whole project in which certain milestones or project deliverables are completed. All these stages, technically called process groups, can be applied to any phase of a project that is divided into multiple phases.

Project Lifecycle Summary:

Let us wrap up this chapter, by summarizing the project lifecycle and the activities involved in it.

Process Group	Project Stage	Goal	Outcome
Initiating	Starting the project	Authorize the project	Project charter
Planning	Organizing and preparing	Plan and schedule the work to perform the project	Project management plan
Executing	Carrying out the work	Perform the project work	Project deliverables: product, service, results
Monitoring and controlling	Spans the project lifecycle	Monitor the progress of the project to identify the variance from the plan and to correct it	Change requests and recommendations for preventive and corrective actions
Closing	Closing the project formally	Close the project	Product acceptance, contract closure, and archiving

The initiating stage authorizes a project by naming the project manager, the planning stage further defines the project objectives and plans the work to meet those objectives, the execution stage executes the work, the monitoring and controlling stage monitors the progress of the project and controls it to keep it in line with the plan, and the closing stage formally closes the project by obtaining the product acceptance. Each of these stages is performed by using a group of processes. Thereby, these stages are called process groups.

The stages of a project or process groups determine when a process is executed, whereas the processes themselves belong to certain knowledge areas of project management. In the next chapter, we will be looking at the project management knowledge areas.

Previous: Understanding a Process

Next: Project Management Knowledge Areas

Chapter 1: Main parts in Managing a Project

Congratulations to you for choosing to pursue the PMP Certification. Well, to begin this journey we need to understand the 5 main parts in Managing a Project Successfully.

Note: We havent formally defined what a project is, but dont worry just yet. It will be covered will all the syllabus of the PMP Certification in the subsequent chapters.

This chapter is just going to outline the 5 main parts in Managing a Project Successfully.

So, lets get started!!!

Part I: Initiating the Project

This is the first part of the sequence of events that help you to initiate, plan, execute, monitor, control and close a project. All the topics covered herein will deal with the steps required to start a project properly and to ensure that all the due diligence is done in a proper way to result in a successful projects.

In order to initiate a project, you will need to know what a project is, and you will want to have a bird’s eye view of the field of project management. Also, you need to know how projects are selected and Initiated.

All of these are covered in depth in Part 1.

Part II: Planning the Project

You have already defined your project and started it at the end of Part I. You can’t wait to start executing it. But hold on for a moment!

When you are executing your project, how will you know that your project is on the right track? or even better When you are executing your project, how will you know that your project will end in a success?

You can answer the above 2 questions only if you had a proper planning phase before you jumped into executing the project.

Also, to lead the project to success, you have to monitor and control it throughout its lifetime. Planning gives you the tools and the framework to do that. You need to plan for the resources that are needed to complete the project. Any management task has certain risks associated with it. So, you need to have plans to manage those risks and also the quality of the work done.

Initiation determines what will be done, whereas planning embraces that what, refines it, and determines how it will be done.

These are the things you will learn in Part 2

Part III: Executing the Project

After the project is authorized through initiation and planning, it’s time to start the execution. You will be directing and managing the project execution throughout the lifecycle of the project. To perform the project work, you will also need to acquire, develop, and manage the project team. Furthermore, your organization might not have the resources to finish certain parts of the project work. You will need to conduct procurements for those parts of the work. In addition to producing deliverables, project execution will also include assuring quality, distributing information on project progress and issues, and managing stakeholder expectations.

You will learn how to do all these things in Part 3

Part IV: Monitoring and Controlling the Project

Any task has to be consistently monitored and corrective measures taken at times when things are going off-track if it has to be a success. And the same is true with projects as well. You need to continually monitor and control your project. In general, monitoring means watching the course, and controlling means taking action to either stay the course or change the wrong course. Applied to project management, you monitor the project by activities such as making performance measurements to ensure that it is on the track set by the project management plan, and you control the project to keep it on track and to bring it back on track if it falls off.

You will learn about how to Monitor the Progress of your project and how to Control it in Part 4.

Part V: Closing the Project

This is the last and final step in any project. To be honest, common sense tells us that anything that was started needs to end. A project is not an activity that is going to continue for eternity. It will end too.

Finishing a project deliberately means finishing it in a controlled way, not just letting it finish, even when it’s cancelled.

To close a project successfully, you verify the deliverables to the customer and get an acceptance about their correctness. All legal contracts too need to be closed in a proper way.

You will learn, how to do all these things in Part 5.

Last but not the least, you will also learn about Professional and Social Responsibilities as a Project Manager and about behaving ethically and morally during your time as a good manager.

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