Figure 4.6 Relationships Among the Closing Processes (PMI, 1996).
As shown in the figures, the processes are divided into core processes and facilitating processes and are shown in what may be a close to time-wise appearance in an actual project. Overall, the figures illustrates well the relationship between the project
management process groups and the project management processes. The processes are also grouped into 12 project management knowledge areas (see Figure 4.7).
Figure 1-1. Overview of Project Management Knowledge Areas and Project Management Processes
Figure 4.7 Overview of Project Management Knowledge Areas and Project Management Processes (PMI, 1996).
It is the author’s opinion, that the above figure is a good illustration of the knowledge areas that project management consist of, although there might always be a discussion on the grouping and categories that are appropriate.
The definitions of the project management process groups and the project management processes are shown in Table 4.2 (a and b). Definitions of the project management knowledge areas are given in Table 4.3.
Initiating Processes- recognizing that a project or phase should begin and committing to do so.
• Initiation—committing the organization to begin the next phase of the project.
Planning Processes- devising and maintaining a workable scheme to accomplish the business need that the project was undertaken to address.
Core Processes:
• Scope planning—developing a written scope statement as the basis for future project decisions.
• Scope definition—subdividing the major project deliverables into smaller, more manageable components.
• Activity definition—identifying the specific activities that must be performed to produce the various project deliverables.
• Activity sequencing—identifying and documenting interactivity dependencies.
• Activity duration estimating—estimating the number of work periods which will be needed to complete individual activities.
• Schedule development—analyzing activity sequences, activity durations, and resource requirements to create the project schedule.
• Resource planning—determining what resources (people, equipment, materials) and what quantities of each should be used to perform project activities.
• Cost estimating—developing an approximation (estimate) of the costs of the resources needed to complete project activities.
• Cost budgeting—allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items.
• Project plan development—taking the results of other planning processes and putting them into a consistent, coherent document.
Facilitating Processes:
• Quality planning—identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them.
• Communications planning—determining the information and communications needs of the stakeholders: who needs what information, when will they need it, and how will it be given to them.
• Organizational planning—identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
• Staff acquisition—getting the human resources needed assigned to and working on the project.
• Risk identification—determining which risks are likely to affect the project and documenting the characteristics of each.
• Risk quantification—evaluating risks and risk interactions to assess the range of possible project outcomes.
• Risk response development—defining enhancement steps for opportunities and responses to threats.
• Procurement planning—determining what to procure and when.
• Solicitation planning—documenting product requirements and identifying potential sources.
Table 4.2a Project Management Processes by Process Groups (PMI, 1996).
Executing processes- coordinating people and other resources to carry out the plan.
Core process:
• Project plan execution—carrying out the project plan by performing the activities included therein.
Facilitating Processes:
• Information distribution—making needed information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner.
• Team development—developing individual and group skills to enhance project performance.
• Quality assurance—evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.
• Scope verification—formalizing acceptance of the project scope.
• Solicitation—obtaining quotations, bids, offers, or proposals as appropriate.
• Source selection—choosing from among potential sellers.
• Contract administration—managing the relationship with the seller.
Controlling processes- ensuring that project objectives are met by monitoring and measuring progress and taking corrective action when necessary.
Core Processes:
• Performance reporting—collecting and disseminating performance information. This includes status reporting, progress measurement, and forecasting.
• Overall change control—coordinating changes across the entire project.
Facilitating Processes:
• Scope change control—controlling changes to project scope.
• Schedule control—controlling changes to the project schedule.
• Cost control—controlling changes to the project budget.
• Quality control—monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance.
• Risk response control—responding to changes in risk over the course of the project.
Closing processes- formalizing acceptance of the project or phase and bringing it to an orderly end.
• Administrative closure—generating, gathering, and disseminating information to formalize phase or project completion.
• Contract close-out—completion and settlement of the contract, including resolution of any open items.
Table 4.2b Project Management Processes by Process Groups (PMI, 1996).
• Project Integration Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly coordinated.
• Project Scope Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.
• Project Time Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure timely completion of the project.
• Project Cost Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget.
• Project Quality Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.
• Project Human Resource Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved with the project.
• Project Communications Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and ultimate disposition of project information.
• Project Risk Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risk.
• Project Procurement Management: A subset of project management that includes the processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the performing organization.
Table 4.3 Definitions of Project Management Knowledge Areas (PMI, 1996).
The ISO and the PMI publications on project management processes are both in the right direction for a process focus on project management. To the knowledge of the author of this dissertation, their work have not been in the context of a benchmarking of project management, but their timing is excellent while the full adaption of benchmarking to project management may seem dependent on a process focus. Both publications have detailed definitions of their defined project management processes and process groups, which should be necessary for all readers to understand them in a same or similar way. If one of these publications could become a standard of project management and its processes, it would be to invaluable help for the teaching and understanding of project management. Such a standard could be a reference and give guidance on an overview level, and would benefit all parties involved in a project, e.g.
with reduced mis-communications. As mentioned earlier however, the individual projects or organizations need to create their own project management processes for practical use, due to variations in projects and project management.
The selection of one of the two sets of project management processes for further use in the dissertation work, was purely a subjective choice by the author. The reader should have this in mind when viewing the following argumentation for one of the two sets.
This dissertation research will use the PMI defined project management processes.
The reason for choosing the processes in PMI’s pmbok, rather than the ISO processes are summarized below:
• Definitions: pmbok defined what project management processes and product oriented processes are. The ISO 10006 did not have clear definitions of this terminology, even if the publication list 33 project management processes.
• Inter-relationship: pmbok has described and made figures of the inter-relationship between the project management processes. ISO 10006 has no descriptions or illustrations about this inter-relationship.
• Easier to understand: pmbok has good figures that illustrates the project management processes and the categorize them into process groups. The process groups and illustrations makes the PMI processes easier to understand than the ISO processes, that are not supported with figures.
• Potential for standard: The pmbok has the potential of becoming a project management standard. It is in total a 176 page book that quite detailed describes project management and it’s processes. In its existing version, ISO 10006 is a 24 page document with text only, that can not convey the subject project management in such a way that it becomes a standard for project management.
Thus, the project management processes used for the rest of this dissertation are the ones defined and illustrated by PMI in pmbok.