Project Management: Process Groups

• Project management involves initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
• It is a strategic competency for organizations, enabling them to tie project results to business goals.

Project Management Process Groups

• Initiating: Defining a project or a new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start.
• Planning: Establishing the project scope, refining objectives, and defining the course of action required to attain the objectives.
• Executing: Completing the work defined in the project plan to satisfy project specifications.
• Monitoring and Controlling: Tracking, reviewing, and regulating the progress and performance of the project, identifying any areas in which changes to the plan are required, and initiating corresponding changes.
• Closing: Finalizing all activities across all of the Project Management Process Groups to formally close the project or phase.

Project Management Knowledge Areas

• Integration Management: Processes and activities to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities.
• Scope Management: Processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.
• Schedule Management: Processes required to manage the timely completion of the project.
• Cost Management: Processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved budget.
• Quality Management: Processes and activities that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.
• Resource Management: Processes to identify, acquire, and manage the resources needed for the successful completion of the project.
• Communications Management: Processes required to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and ultimate disposition of project information.
• Risk Management: Processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning, response implementation, and monitoring risk on a project.
• Procurement Management: Processes necessary to purchase or acquire products, services, or results needed from outside the project team.
• Stakeholder Management: Processes required to identify the people, groups, or organizations that could impact or be impacted by the project, to analyze stakeholder expectations and their impact on the project, and to develop appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions and execution.

Project Constraints

• Scope: The goals and deliverables of the project.
• Time: The schedule for the project.
• Cost: The budget for the project.
• Quality: The standards and criteria the project outcomes must meet.
• Resources: The people, equipment, and materials available.
• Risk: Potential events that could impact the project.

Project Management Methodologies

• Waterfall: A sequential, linear approach to project management.
• Agile: An iterative, incremental approach that emphasizes flexibility and collaboration.
• Scrum: A framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products.
• Kanban: A visual system for managing workflow.
• Lean: A methodology focused on minimizing waste and maximizing value.
• Critical Path Method (CPM): An algorithm for scheduling project activities.

Project Charter

• Document that formally authorizes a project or a phase and documents initial requirements.
• It outlines the project objectives, identifies key stakeholders, and assigns a project manager.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team.
• It organizes and defines the total scope of the project.

Gantt Chart

• A visual timeline representing project tasks, their durations, and dependencies, used for planning and tracking progress.

Project Budget

• An estimation of all costs that will be incurred throughout a project's lifecycle.
• It includes labor, materials, equipment, and overhead costs.

Risk Register

• A document containing a list of identified risks, potential responses, and risk owners.
• It is used for tracking and managing project risks.

Stakeholder Analysis

• The process of identifying project stakeholders and analyzing their interests, expectations, importance, and influence.

Communication Plan

• A document that outlines how communication will be managed throughout a project.
• It specifies who needs to receive what information, when, and how.

Project management strategically aligns team efforts with business objectives through initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing processes. Each project management process is essential for achieving specific project goals and meeting success criteria. These processes ensure projects are completed efficiently and effectively.