Project management knowledge areas

There are 9 project management knowledge areas

1. Project Integration management
2. project Scope management
3. Project Time management
4. Project Cost management
5. Project Quality Management
6. Project Human resource management
7. Project Communications management
8. Project Risk management
9. Project Procurement management
(IST CQH CRP)

4. The project Integration Management

Includes the processes and activities needed to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities  within the project management process groups.

To: identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate
What: the various processes and project management activities
Where: within the project management process groups.

Why Integration Management?

The need for integration in the project management becomes evident in situations where individual processes interacts.

No Waiver:

The project manager and project team MUST address every process, and the level of implementation for each process must be determined for each specific process

The integrative project management process includes

1. Develop Project Charter
2. Develop preliminary project scope statement
3. Develop project management plan
4. Direct and manage project execution
5. Monitor and control project work
6. Integrated change control
7. Close project

4.1 Develop project charter

The project charter is a document that formally authorizes a project
The project charter provides the manager with the authority to apply organizational resource to project.
A project manager is assigned before the planning stars preferably while the project charter is being developed.

Who develops/issues it

- Project initiator, a level appropriate OR a person authorized to approve the funding pt the project.
- Usually chartered and authorized by external to the Project Organization (By an enterprise, Government body, Company, Program organization, portfolio organization)

What drives a project charter?

- Market demand
- Business need
- Customer request
- Technological advance
- Legal requirement
- Social need

What it must contain

- Requirement that satisfy customer, sponsor, and other stakeholders needs, wants and expectations
- Business needs, high-level project description, or project requirements that the project is undertaken to address
- Project purpose or justification
- Assigned project manager and authority level
- Summary milestone schedule
- Stakeholder influence
- Functional organization and their participation
- Organizational, Environmental, and external assumptions
- Organizational, Environmental, and external constraints
- Business case justifying the project, including return on investment
- Summary budget

Input

- Contract
- Project statement of work
- Enterprise environmental factor
- Organizational process asset

Tool and technique

- Project selection methods
- Project management methodology
- Project management information system
- Expert Judgment

Output

- Project Charter

4.2 Develop preliminary project scope statement

The project scope statement is the definition of the project – what need to be accomplished.

What is does contains (It may contain some of all of below)

- Project and product objective
- Product or service requirement and characteristic
- Product acceptance criteria
- Project boundaries
- Project requirements and deliverables
- Project constraints
- Project assumptions
- Initial project organization
- Initial defined risks
- Schedule milestones
- Initial WBS
- Order of magnitude cost estimate
- Approval requirements

Who does it?

- The information is provided by the project initiator or sponsor
- The project team does develop it.

Inputs

- Project charter
- Project statement of work
- Enterprise environmental factor
- Organizational process assets

Tools and techniques

- Project management methodology
- Project management information system
- Expert judgment

Output

- Preliminary project scope statement

4.3 Develop Project Management Plan

The “Develop Project Management Plan” process includes the actions necessary to define, integrate, and coordinate all subsidiary plan into a project management plan.

Project management plan

The project management plan defines how the project is executed, monitored, and controlled and closed.

What does it contains

The project management plan documents the collection of outputs of the Planning Process of the Planning Process Group and includes:

- Project management process selected by the project management selected by the project management team
- The level of implementation for each selected process
- The description of the tools and techniques to be used for accomplishing those processes
- How the selected process will be used to manage the specific project, including the dependencies and interactions among those processes and the essential input and output.
- How work will be executed to accomplish the project objectives
- How changes will be monitored and controlled
- How configuration management will be performed
- How integrity of performance measurement baseline will be maintained and used
- The need and techniques for communication among stakeholders
- The selected project lifecycle and, for multiphase the associated project phases
- Key management review for content, extent, and timing to facilitate addressing open issues and pending decisions.

Subsidiary Plans

-Scope, Schedule, cost, Process Improvement, Staffing, Communication, Risk, Procurement

Other components

-Milestone list, Resource calendar, schedule baseline, cost baseline, quality baseline, risk register

Inputs

- Preliminary project scope statement
- Project management process
- Enterprise environmental factor
- Organizational process assets

Tools and techniques

- Project management methodology
- Project management information system
      - Configuration management system
      - Change control system
- Expert judgment

Output

- Project Management Plan

4.4 Direct and manage project execution

The Direct and manage project Execution process requires the project manager and the project team to perform multiple actions to execute the project management plan to accomplish the work defined in the project scope statement

Input:

Project management plan
Approved corrective actions
Approved preventive actions
Approved change requests
Approved defect repair
Validated defect repair
Administrative closure procedure

Tools And Techniques

Project management methodology
Project management information system

Output

Deliverables
Requested changes
Implemented change requests
Implemented corrective actions
Implemented preventive actions
Implemented defect repair
Work performance information

4.5 Monitor and control Project work

The monitor and control project work process is performed to monitor project process and associated with initiating, Planning, and closing.
Corrective actions are taken to control the project performance.
Monitoring includes collecting measuring, and disseminating performance information, and assessing measurements and trends to effect process improvement.

That is done in this process

- Comparing actual project performance against the project plan.
- Accessing, performance to determine whether any corrective or preventive actions are indicated, and then recommending those actions as necessary.
- Analyzing tracking and monitoring project risk to make sure the risk are identified, their status is reported and the appropriate risk response plan are being executed.
- Maintain an accurate, timely information base concerning the project’s products and their associated documentation through project completion
- Providing information to support status reporting, progress measurement, and forecasting.
- Providing forecast to update current cost and current schedule information
- Monitoring implementation of approved changes when and as they occur.

Input

- Project management plan
- Work performance information
- Rejected change requests

Tools and techniques

- Project management methodology
- Project management information system
- Earned value techniques
- Expert judgment

Output:

- Recommended corrective actions
- Recommended preventive actions
- Forecast
- Recommended defect repair
- Requested changes

4.6 Integrated Change control

When:

the integrated change control process is performed from project inception through completion.

Why;

Change control is necessary because projects seldom run exactly according to the project management plan.

What:

The integrated change control process includes change management activities in differing level of detail, based on the completion of project execution
Refer PMBOK

Input:

- Project management plan
- Change request
- Work performance information
- Recommended preventive actions
- Recommended corrective actions
- Recommended defect repair
- Deliverables

Tools and techniques

- Project management methodology
- Project management information system
- Expert judgment

Output:

- Approved change requests
- Rejected change requests
- Project management plan (Updates)
- Project scope statement (Updates)
- Approved corrective actions
- Approved preventive actions
- Approved defect repair
- Validated defect repair
- Deliverables

4.7 Close Project

The Close Project process involves performing the project closure portion of the project management plan. In a multi phase project the close process closes out the portion of the project scope and associated activities applicable to a given phase.

Procedures

- Administrative closure Procedure
- Contract closure procedure

Inputs

- Project management plan
- Contract documentation
- Enterprise environmental factor
- Organizational process assets
- Work performance information
- Deliverables

Tools and techniques

- Project management methodology
- Project management information system
- Expert judgment

Output:

- Administrative closure Procedure
- Contract closure procedure
- Final product, service or result
- Organizational process assets (updates)
  - Formal Acceptance Documentation
  - Project Files
  - Project Closure Documents
  - Historical information

QA (Rita Mulcahy)

1. The sponsor’s role on a project is BEST described as:

  A. helping to plan activities
  B. helping to prevent unnecessary changes to project objectives
  C. identifying unnecessary project constraints
  D. helping to put the project management plan together

2. A work authorization system can be used to:

  A. Manage who does each activity
  B. Manages what time and in what sequence work is done
  C. Manage when each activity is done
  D. Manage who does each activity and when  it is done

3. A particular stakeholder has a reputation for making many changes on projects. What is the BEST approach a project manager can take at the beginning of the project to manage this situation?

  A. Sat “NO” to the stakeholder a few time to dissuade him from submitting more changes.
  B. Get the stakeholder involved in the project as early as possible
  C. Talk to the stakeholder’s boss to find ways to direct the stakeholders activities to another project.
  D. Ask that the stakeholder not be included in the stakeholder listing.

4. Which of the following BEST describes a project manmagement plan?

  A. A printout from project management software
  B. A bar chart
  C. Risk, management, staffing, process improvement and other management plans
  D. The project scope

5. All of the following will occur during the project closure EXCEPT

  A. creating lessons learnt
  B. formal acceptance
  C. reducing resource spending
  D. performance benefit cost analysis

Answer:

1 B
2 B
3 B
4 C
5 D