A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge

Chapter 1

Introduction

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) is an inclusive term that describes the sum of knowledge within the profession of project management. As with other professions such as law, medicine, and accounting, the body of knowledge rests with the practitioners and academics that apply and advance it. The full project management body of knowledge includes knowledge of proven traditional practices that are widely applied, as well as knowledge of innovative and advanced practices that have seen more limited use, and includes both published and unpublished material.

This chapter defines and explains several key terms and provides an overview of the rest of the document. It includes the following major sections:

1.1 Purpose of This Guide 1.2 What Is a Project? 1.3 What Is Project Management? 1.4 Relationship to Other Management Disciplines 1.5 Related Endeavors

1.1  PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE

Project management is an emerging profession. The primary purpose of this document is to identify and describe that subset of the PMBOK® that is generally accepted. Generally accepted means that the knowledge and practices described are applicable to most projects most of the time, and that there is widespread consensus about their value and usefulness. Generally accepted does not mean that the knowledge and practices described are or should be applied uniformly on all projects; the project management team is always responsible for determining what is appropriate for any given project.

This document is also intended to provide a common lexicon within the profession and practice for talking and writing about project management. Project management is a relatively young profession, and while there is substantial commonality around what is done, there is relatively little commonality in the terms used.

This document provides a basic reference for anyone interested in the profession of project management. This includes, but is not limited to:

s Senior executives.

s Managers of project managers.

s Project managers and other project team members.

s Project customers and other project stakeholders.

s Functional managers with employees assigned to project teams.

s Educators teaching project management and related subjects.

s Consultants and other specialists in project management and related fields.

s Trainers developing project management educational programs.

As a basic reference, this document is neither comprehensive nor all inclusive.

Appendix E discusses application area extensions while Appendix F lists sources of further information on project management.

This document is also used by the Project Management Institute as a basic reference about project management knowledge and practices for its professional development programs including:

s Certification of Project Management Professionals (PMP®).

s Accreditation of educational programs in project management.

1.2  WHAT IS A PROJECT?

Organizations perform work. Work generally involves either operations or projects, although the two may overlap. Operations and projects share many characteristics; for example, they are:

s Performed by people.

s Constrained by limited resources.

s Planned, executed, and controlled.

Projects are often implemented as a means of achieving an organization’s strategic plan. Operations and projects differ primarily in that operations are ongoing and repetitive while projects are temporary and unique. A project can thus be defined in terms of its distinctive characteristics a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Temporary means that every project has a definite beginning and a definite end. Unique means that the product or service is different in some distinguishing way from all other products or services. For many organizations, projects are a means to respond to those requests that cannot be addressed within the organization’s normal operational limits. Projects are undertaken at all levels of the organization. They may involve a single person or many thousands. Their duration ranges from a few weeks to more than five years. Projects may involve a single unit of one organization or may cross organizational boundaries, as in joint ventures and partnering. Projects are critical to the realization of the performing organization’s business strategy because projects are a means by which strategy is implemented. Examples of projects include: s Developing a new product or service. s Effecting a change in structure, staffing, or style of an organization. s Designing a new transportation vehicle. s Developing or acquiring a new or modified information system. s Constructing a building or facility. s Building a water system for a community in a developing country. s Running a campaign for political office. s Implementing a new business procedure or process.

1.2.1 Temporary

Temporary means that every project has a definite beginning and a definite end. The end is reached when the project’s objectives have been achieved, or when it becomes clear that the project objectives will not or cannot be met, or the need for the project no longer exists and the project is terminated. Temporary does not necessarily mean short in duration; many projects last for several years. In every case, however, the duration of a project is finite; projects are not ongoing efforts.

In addition, temporary does not generally apply to the product or service created by the project. Projects may often have intended and unintended social, economic, and environmental impacts that far outlast the projects themselves. Most projects are undertaken to create a lasting result. For example, a project to erect a national monument will create a result expected to last centuries. A series of projects and/or complementary projects in parallel may be required to achieve a strategic objective.

The objectives of projects and operations are fundamentally different. The objective of a project is to attain the objective and close the project. The objective of an ongoing nonprojectized operation is normally to sustain the business. Projects are fundamentally different because the project ceases when its declared objectives have been attained, while nonproject undertakings adopt a new set of objectives and continue to work.

The temporary nature of projects may apply to other aspects of the endeavor as well:

s The opportunity or market window is usually temporary—most projects have a limited time frame in which to produce their product or service.

s The project team, as a team, seldom outlives the project—most projects are performed by a team created for the sole purpose of performing the project, and the team is disbanded when the project is complete.

1.2.2  Unique Product, Service, or Result

Projects involve doing something that has not been done before and which is, therefore,  unique. A product or service may be unique even if the category to which it belongs is large. For example, many thousands of office buildings have been developed, but each individual facility is unique—different owner, different design, different location, different contractors, and so on. The presence of repetitive elements does not change the fundamental uniqueness of the project work. For example:

s A project to develop a new commercial airliner may require multiple prototypes.

s A project to bring a new drug to market may require thousands of doses of the drug to support clinical trials.

s A real estate development project may include hundreds of individual units.

s A development project (e.g., water and sanitation) may be implemented in five geographic areas.

1.2.3 Progressive Elaboration

Progressive elaboration is a characteristic of projects that integrates the concepts of temporary and unique. Because the product of each project is unique, the characteristics that distinguish the product or service must be progressively elaborated.

Progressively means “proceeding in steps; continuing steadily by increments,”

while elaborated means “worked out with care and detail; developed thoroughly”

(1). These distinguishing characteristics will be broadly defined early in the project, and will be made more explicit and detailed as the project team develops a better and more complete understanding of the product.

Progressive elaboration of product characteristics must be carefully coordinated

with proper project scope definition, particularly if the project is performed under contract. When properly defined, the scope of the project—the work to be done— should remain constant even as the product characteristics are progressively elab- orated. The relationship between product scope and project scope is discussed further in the introduction to Chapter 5.

The following two examples illustrate progressive elaboration in two different

application areas.

Example 1. Development of a chemical processing plant begins with process

engineering to define the characteristics of the process. These characteristics are used to design the major processing units. This information becomes the basis for engineering design, which defines both the detail plant layout and the mechanical characteristics of the process units and ancillary facilities. All of these result in design drawings that are elaborated to produce fabrication drawings (construction isometrics). During construction, interpretations and adaptations are made as needed and subject to proper approval. This further elaboration of the character- istics is captured by as-built drawings. During test and turnover, further elaboration of the characteristics is often made in the form of final operating adjustments.

Example 2. The product of an economic development project may initially be

defined as: “Improve the quality of life of the lowest income residents of community X.” As the   project proceeds, the products may be described more specifically as, for example: “Provide access to food and water to 500 low income residents in community X.” The next round of progressive elaboration might focus exclusively on increasing agriculture production and marketing, with provision of water deemed to be secondary priority to be initiated once the agriculture component is well under way.

1.3  WHAT IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT?

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Project management is accom- plished through the use of the processes such as: initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. The project team manages the work of the projects, and the work typically involves:

s Competing demands for: scope, time, cost, risk, and quality.

s Stakeholders with differing needs and expectations.

s Identified requirements.

It is important to note that many of the processes within project management are iterative in nature. This is in part due to the existence of and the necessity for progressive elaboration in a project throughout the project life cycle; i.e., the more you know about your project, the better you are able to manage it.

The term project management is sometimes used to describe an organizational approach to the management of ongoing operations. This approach, more properly called management by projects, treats many aspects of ongoing operations as projects to apply project management techniques to them. Although an understanding of project management is critical to an organization that is managing by projects, a detailed discussion of the approach itself is outside the scope of this document.

Knowledge about project management can be organized in many ways. This document has two major sections and twelve chapters, as described below.

1.3.1  The Project Management Framework

Section I, The Project Management Framework, provides a basic structure for understanding project management.

Chapter 1, Introduction, defines key terms and provides an overview of the rest of the document.

Chapter 2, The Project Management Context, describes the environment in which projects operate. The project management team must understand this broader context managing the day to day activities of the project is necessary for success but not sufficient.

   Chapter 3, Project Management Processes, describes a generalized view of how the various project management processes commonly interact. Understanding these interactions is essential to understanding the material presented in Chapters 4 through 12.

1.3.2  The Project Management Knowledge Areas

Section II, The Project Management Knowledge Areas, describes project man- agement knowledge and practice in terms of their component processes. These processes have been organized into nine knowledge areas, as described below and as illustrated in Figure 1-1.

Chapter 4, Project Integration Management, describes the processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly coordinated. It consists of project plan development, project plan execution, and integrated change control.

Chapter 5, Project Scope Management, describes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. It consists of initiation, scope planning, scope definition, scope verification, and scope change control.

Chapter 6, Project Time Management, describes the processes required to ensure timely completion of the project. It consists of activity definition, activity sequencing, activity duration estimating, schedule development, and schedule control.

Chapter 7, Project Cost Management, describes the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget. It consists of resource planning, cost estimating, cost budgeting, and cost control.

Chapter 8, Project Quality Management, describes the processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. It consists of quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.

Chapter 9, Project Human Resource Management, describes the processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved with the project. It consists of organizational planning, staff acquisition, and team development.

Chapter 10, Project Communications Management, describes the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination,

storage, and ultimate disposition of project information. It consists of communications planning, information distribution, performance reporting, and administrative closure.

Chapter 11, Project Risk Management, describes the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risk. It consists of risk management planning, risk identification, qualitative risk analysis, quantitative risk analysis, risk response planning, and risk monitoring and control.

Chapter 12, Project Procurement Management, describes the processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the performing organization. It consists of procurement planning, solicitation planning, solicitation, source selection, contract administration, and contract closeout.

1.4  RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER MANAGEMENT DISCIPLINES

Much of the knowledge needed to manage projects is unique to project management (e.g., critical path analysis and work breakdown structures). However, the PMBOK® does overlap other management disciplines, as illustrated in Figure 1-2.

General management encompasses planning, organizing, staffing, executing, and controlling the operations of an ongoing enterprise. General management also includes supporting disciplines such as law, strategic planning, logistics, and human resources management. The PMBOK® overlaps or modifies general management in many area organizational behavior, financial forecasting, and planning techniques, to name just a few. Section 2.4 provides a more detailed discussion of general management.

Application areas are categories of projects that have common elements significant in such projects, but are not needed or present in all projects. Application areas are usually defined in terms of:

s Functional departments and supporting disciplines, such as legal, production and inventory management, marketing, logistics and personnel.

s Technical elements, such as software development, pharmaceuticals, water and sanitation engineering, or construction engineering.

s Management specializations, such as government contracting, community development, or new product development.

s Industry groups, such as automotive, chemicals, agriculture, or financial services. Appendix E includes a more detailed discussion of project management application areas.

1.5 REL ATED ENDEAVORS

Certain types of endeavors are closely related to projects. There is often a hierarchy of strategic plan, program, project, and subproject, in which a program consisting of several associated projects will contribute to the achievement of a strategic plan. These related undertakings are described below.

Programs. A program is a group of projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually (2). Many programs also include elements of ongoing operations. For example:

s The “XYZ airplane program” includes both the project or projects to design and develop the aircraft, as well as the ongoing manufacturing and support of that craft in the field.

s Many electronics firms have program managers who are responsible for both individual product releases (projects) and the coordination of multiple releases over time (an ongoing operation). Programs may also involve a series of repetitive or cyclical undert example:

s Utilities often speak of an annual “construction program,” a regular, ongoing operation that involves many projects.

s Many nonprofit organizations have a “fundraising program,” an ongoing effort to obtain financial support that often involves a series of discrete projects, such as a membership drive or an auction.

s Publishing a newspaper or magazine is also a program the periodical itself is an ongoing effort, but each individual issue is a project.

In some application areas, program management and project management are treated as synonyms; in others, project management is a subset of program management. This diversity of meaning makes it imperative that any discussion of program management versus project management be preceded by agreement on a clear and consistent definition of each term. Subprojects. Projects are frequently divided into more manageable components or subprojects. Subprojects are often contracted to an external enterprise or to another functional unit in the performing organization. Examples include:

s Subprojects based on the project process, such as a single phase.

s Subprojects according to human resource skill requirements, such as the installation of plumbing or electrical fixtures on a construction project.

s Subprojects involving technology, such as automated testing of computer programs on a software development project.

Subprojects are typically referred to as projects and managed as such.

Project Portfolio Management. Project portfolio management refers to the selection and support of projects or program investments. These investments in projects and programs are guided by the organization’s strategic plan and available resources.