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)