The Planning Process Group
The planning process group specifies the project scope and objectives and defines the actions required to achieve those objectives. The project management plan and additional core project documents are developed during the planning process to determine and provide baselines for the project.
Considerable knowledge, skills, and abilities are required to plan a project, including change management, procurement, budgeting tools and techniques, communication skills, contracting, estimation tools and techniques, communication skills, quality management, time management, and workflow diagramming techniques.
Some of the tasks a project manager will need to perform include:
Designate project deliverables based on the project requirements, constraints, and assumptions, utilizing the project charter, lessons learned, and requirement gathering techniques
Create the scope management plan to define, maintain and manage the project scope
Create the cost management plan using estimating techniques
Create the project schedule to ensure the project is finished on time
Create the human resources element of the resource management plan to determine the roles and responsibilities of team members
Create the communications management plan founded on the organizational chart and stakeholders to control the flow of information
Create the procurement management plan to ensure the project resources are available when needed
Create the quality management plan to designate quality standards and procedures
Create the change management plan to establish the process for addressing and managing project changes
Create the risk management plan to identify and prioritize risks, and choose response strategies
Create the project management plan to incorporate these procedures
Create the stakeholder management plan to determine needs, interests, and impacts of stakeholders; and determine ways to engage stakeholders in project management decisions and manage their expectations
Submit the project management plan to appropriate stakeholders or senior management to receive approval to execute the project
Conduct a kick-off meeting to communicate project milestones and build allegiance from stakeholders
Planning Process Group
Inputs:
Agreements
Business documents
Enterprise environmental factors (learn more click here)
Organizational process assets (learn more click here)
Project charter
Project documents
Project Management Plan
Tools and Techniques:
Context diagram
Data analysis
Data gathering
Data representation
Decision making
Decomposition analysis
Dependency determination
Expert judgment
Interpersonal and team skills
Leads and lags
Meetings
Precedence Diagramming Method
Product analysis
Project management information system
Prototypes
Rolling Value Planning
Outputs
Activity attributes
Activity list
Change request
Milestone list
Project document updates
Project Mangement Plan
Project Management Plan updates
Project schedule network diagram
Project scope statement
Requirements documentation
Requirements management plan
Requirements traceability matrix
Schedule management plan
Scope baseline
Scope management plan
Project Management Plan
The Project Management Plan describes the project work and how it will be achieved and executed, monitored, controlled, and closed.
Project Scope
Project scope management ensures that the project achieves all the work required and only the required work.
Plan Scope Management
Develop a plan to document how the scope will be defined, validated, monitored, and controlled.
Define the Scope
Create a thorough description of the project or product, including the acceptance criteria. The final project requirements are used to define the scope. A detailed scope statement will also specify deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
Project Requirements
To collect project requirements, determine and document the needs and requirements for the project to fulfill the project objectives. These requirements will assist in defining the scope, the work breakdown structure, the cost, procurement, schedule, and quality management plans.
Work Breakdown Structure
The WBS breaks the project work and deliverables into smaller, more manageable groups. It represents the total work required to complete the project's scope.
Project Schedule
Project schedule management ensures the project is completed on time and specifies the timeframe for completing project deliverables.
Define Activities: Determines the activities that must happen to generate the project deliverables.
Sequence Activities: Determine relationships between project activities, which allows the project manager to identify the best sequence to effectively perform activities to accomplish the overall goal.
Estimate Activity Durations: Estimate the work time needed to finish activities given the resources estimated to be available.
Develop Schedule: Using the activities, estimated activity durations, resource requirements, and known constraints, make a schedule that can be utilized during project execution, monitoring, and controlling to ensure the project is on track to be finished on time.
Cost Management
Cost management in a project involves managing and controlling costs to complete the project within budget.
Cost Management Plan: The cost management plan specifies how project costs will be estimated, managed and controlled.
Estimate Costs: Estimating costs involves generating the estimated costs of the project.
Determine Budget: The budget is the aggregate cost of all activities and resources estimated to be necessary to complete the project.
Quality Management
The quality management plan will identify quality standards or policies that impact the project and explain how the project will conform to the quality requirements.
Resource Management
Resource management planning focuses on ensuring the right resources will be available at the right time and place.
Estimate Activity Resources: Estimating activity resources is the process of estimating the physical and team member resources that will be required to complete the project.
Communications Management
The communication management plan specifies the communication approaches to be used to fulfill the information transfer needs of the project. (learn more click here)
Risk Management
Risk Management Plan: The risk management plan describes how risk management activities will be performed during the project.
Identify Risks: Identity and clearly describe the known risks for the project.
Qualitative Risk Analysis: Determine the probability of risks occurring and their impacts to prioritize risk management strategies focused on those with the highest priorities. This specifies the risk owner responsible for responding appropriately to that risk.
Quantitative Risk Analysis: Perform numerical analysis of risk occurrence and project uncertainty to provide the overall risk exposure.
Risk Response Plan: The risk response plan will describe options for addressing project risks, both within the project and to the project as a whole. This process will allocate resources and include project activities and documents to satisfy the risk response strategy.
Procurement Management
The procurement management plan will describe the procurement method or process, procurement decisions, and potential sources. This plan will determine whether goods and services will come from within or outside the project and how they should be acquired.
Stakeholder Engagement
The stakeholder engagement plan will describe how stakeholders will be involved in the project. Considerations include stakeholder needs and expectations, interests, and potential impacts. (learn more click here)
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