Project Management Overview
The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam is based on the contents of the Project Management Body of Knowledge. John P. Muldoon has posted a summary of the PMBOK here, which addresses all 47 covered processes. Here's a rough outline of this summary, the purpose being to give a quick glance at what the field of project management covers.
Develop Project Charter
INPUT: Project Statement of Work
OUTPUT: Project Charter
Stakeholder Management
OUTPUT: Stakeholder register.
Develop Project Management Plan
Project Scope Management
OUTPUT: Requirements documentation and requirements traceability matrix.
Collect Requirements
Conduct interviews and workshops.
Define Scope
Work Breakdown Structure
Divide deliverables into manageable pieces.
Plan Schedule Management
OUTPUT: Schedule Management Plan.
levels of accuracy for activity estimations.
Define Activities
OUTPUT: Activity list and Milestone list.
Sequence Activities
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
Finish to start - Successor cannot start until predecessor has finished.
Finish to finish - Successor cannot finish until predecessor has finished.
Start to start - Successor cannot start until predecessor has started.
Start to finish - Successor cannot finish until predecessor has started.
Estimate Activity Resources
Estimate Activity Durations
Project Cost Management
Estimate Costs
Begin with Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) ranges that should decrease as more information becomes available.
Determine Budget
The project budget includes the cost baseline (the approved budget) and a management reserve.
Project Quality Management
Quality is the degree to which requirements are met. Grade is the design. Low grade software (with limited functionality) may be of high quality (in that it does not have any defects).
Plan Quality Management
Measured by cost of conformance (to avoid failures) and the cost of nonconformance (money spent because of failures).
Human Resource Management
Plan Communications Management
Risk Management
Identify Risks
Qualitative Risk Analysis
Quantitative Risk Analysis
Procurement Management
Consider fixed price contracts; cost reimbursable contracts; and times and materials contracts.
Stakeholder Management
Integration Management
Corrective action (to re-align work with the plan); preventive action (to maintain work with the plan); defect repair (fix nonconforming product); and updates (changes to plans).
Quality Management - independent audit should be performed.
Direct & Manage Project Work
Perform Quality Assurance
Acquire Project Team
Develop Project Team
Manage Project Team
Avoid conflict
Smooth conflict by emphasizing areas of agreement.
Compromise by getting some satisfaction to all.
Force by pushing your own view point.
Collaborate or problem solve to get consensus.
Manage Communications
Conduct Procurements
Manage Stakeholder Engagement
Monitor & Control Project Work
Perform Integrated Change Control - reviewing all change requests, approving some, managing the change, and communicating those changes.
Control Quality - perform attribute sampling (to see if something is conforming or not); and variable sampling (measure the degree of conformity).
Validate Scope - acceptance of the completed deliverables.
Control Schedule - Is there any deviation from the schedule?
Control Costs -
Track Planned Value (PV), Earned Value (EV) and Actual Cost (AC).
To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI) - how much to meet a goal.
Control Communications - meet the information needs of the stakeholders.
Control Risks
Control Procurements
Control Stakeholder Engagement
Close Project or Phase
Note lessons learned.
Release resources
Close Procurements
Note that each stage consists of INPUTS, TOOLS & TECHNIQUES, and OUTPUTS.
