Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

The PMBOK Guide is the standard for managing most projects most of the time across many types of industries. This standard describes the project management processes, tools, and techniques used to manage a project toward a successful outcome.

This standard is unique to the project management field and has interrelationships to other project management disciplines such as program management and portfolio management.

Project management standards do not address all details of every topic. This standard is limited to single projects and the project management processes that are generally recognized as good practice.

(Excerpt from PMBOK 4th Edition, PMI USA)

Project Management Processes

Project management process involves a number of activities that contribute to overall project completion; these number of activities can be categorized together to form five main processes of project management.

• Project Initiation
• Project Planning
• Project Execution
• Project Monitoring & Control
• Project Closing

Now we will discuss the five processes of project management in bit detail

Project Initiation

The initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project, If this stage is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’ needs. The key project controls needed here are an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to fix them.

Project Planning

After the initiation stage, the project is planned to an appropriate level of detail. The main purpose is to plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to effectively manage risk during project execution. As with the Initiation process group, a failure to adequately plan greatly reduces the project's chances of successfully accomplishing its goals.

Project planning generally consists of

• determining how to plan
• developing the scope statement
• selecting the planning team
• identifying deliverables and creating the work breakdown structure;
• identifying the activities needed to complete those deliverables and networking the activities in their logical sequence.
• estimating the resource requirements for the activities;
• estimating time and cost for activities;
• developing the schedule;
• developing the budget;
• risk planning;

Project Execution

Executing consists of the processes used to complete the work defined in the project plan to accomplish the project's requirements. Execution process involves coordinating people and resources, as well as integrating and performing the activities of the project in accordance with the project management plan. The deliverables are produced as outputs from the processes performed as defined in the project management plan and other frameworks that might be applicable to the type of project at hand.

Execution process group include:

• Direct and Manage Project execution
• Quality Assurance of deliverables
• Acquire, Develop and Manage Project team
• Distribute Information
• Manage stakeholder expectations
• Conduct Procurement

Project Monitoring & Control

Monitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary, to control the execution of the project. The key benefit is that project performance is observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the project management plan.

Monitoring and controlling includes:

• Measuring the ongoing project activities ('where we are');
• Monitoring the project variables (cost, effort, scope, etc.) against the project management plan and the project performance baseline (where we should be);
• Identify corrective actions to address issues and risks properly (How can we get on track again);
• Influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control so only approved changes are implemented.

Project Closing

Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.

This phase consists of:

• Project closure: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phase
• Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items) and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase

Project Management Triangle

The Project Management Triangle is a model of the constraints of project management.

Like any human, undertaking projects need to be performed and delivered under certain constraints. Traditionally, these constraints have been listed as "scope," "time," and "cost".These are also referred to as the "Project Management Triangle". Where each triangle side represents a constraint, its to be noted that one side of the triangle cannot be changed without affecting the others.

   Time   : The time constraint refers to the amount of time available to complete a project. 
   Cost    : The cost constraint refers to the budgeted amount available for the project.
   Scope : The scope constraint refers to what must be done to produce the project's end result.

These three constraints are often competing constraints: 
  - Increased scope typically means increased time and increased cost.
  - A tight time constraint could mean increased costs and reduced scope
  - and a tight budget could mean increased time and reduced scope.

The discipline of Project Management is about providing the tools and techniques that enable the project team (not just the project manager) to organize their work to meet these constraints.

Time

For analytic purposes, the time required to produce a deliverable is estimated using several techniques. One method is to identify tasks needed to produce the deliverables documented in a work breakdown structure or WBS. The work effort for each task is estimated and those estimates are rolled up into the final deliverable estimate.

The tasks are also prioritized, dependencies between tasks are identified, and this information is documented in a project schedule. The dependencies between the tasks can affect the length of the overall project (dependency constrained), as can the availability of resources (resource constrained). Time is different from all other resources and cost categories.

Cost

To develop an approximation of a project cost depends on several variables including: resources, work packages such as labor rates and mitigating or controlling influencing factors that create cost variances.

Tools used in cost are, risk management, cost contingency, cost escalation, and indirect costs .

Scope

Requirements specified to achieve the end result. The overall definition of what the project is supposed to accomplish, and a specific description of what the end result should be or accomplish. 

A major component of scope is the quality of the final product. The amount of time put into individual tasks determines the overall quality of the project. Some tasks may require a given amount of time to complete adequately, but given more time could be completed exceptionally. Over the course of a large project, quality can have a significant impact on time and cost (or vice versa).

Together, these three constraints have given rise to the phrase "On Time, On Spec, On Budget." In this case, the term "scope" is substituted with "spec(ification)."

Intro to Project Management (PPT)

This detailed power point presentation covers "introduction to project management" in bit more detail to my last day post.

The Project Management Process - Week 1 from Craig Brown

Introduction to Project Management

• Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals.
• A Project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end.
• Projects are undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives,
•  typically to bring about beneficial change or added value.
• The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations).
• The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived constraints.
•  The primary constraints are scope, time, quality and budget

• The secondary —and more ambitious— challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and integrate them to meet pre-defined objectives.
• Project Management activities can be categorized into five main processes:
• Initiation
• Planning
• Execution
• Monitoring & Control
• Closeout & Evaluation