Project Management Processes

The project management processes are presented as discrete elements with well- defined interfaces. However, in practice they overlap and interact in ways that are not completely detailed here. Most experienced project management practitioners recognize there is more than one way to manage a project. The specifics for a project are defined as objectives that must be accomplished based on complexity, risk, size, time frame, project team’s experience, access to resources, amount of historical information, the organization’s project management maturity, and industry and application area. The required Process Groups and their constituent processes are guides to apply appropriate project management knowledge and skills during the project. In addition, the application of the project management processes to a project is iterative and many processes are repeated and revised during the project. The project manager and the project team are responsible for determining what processes from the Process Groups will be employed, by whom, and the degree of rigor that will be applied to the execution of those processes to achieve the desired project objective.

An underlying concept for the interaction among the project management processes is the plan-do-check-act cycle (as defined by Shewhart and modified by Deming, in the ASQ Handbook, pages 13�"14, American Society for Quality, 1999). This cycle is linked by results �" the result from one part of the cycle becomes the input to another. See Figure 3-1.

The integrative nature of the Process Groups is more complex than the basic plan-do-check-act cycle (see Figure 3-2). However, the enhanced cycle can be applied to the interrelationships within and among the Process Groups. The Planning Process Group corresponds to the “plan” component of the plan-do-check-act cycle. The Executing Process Group corresponds to the “do” component and the Monitoring and Controlling Process Group corresponds to the “check and act” components. In addition, since management of a project is a finite effort, the Initiating Process Group starts these cycles and the Closing Process Group ends them. The integrative nature of project management requires the Monitoring and Controlling Process Group interaction with every aspect of the other Process Groups.