Project Management Process Groups

Project Management Process Groups

• A process is a structured method that turns resources into desired results.
• Every process has three parts: Input, Tools and Techniques, and Output.
• Project Management Process Groups are organized sets of processes, grouped by their purpose and role in the project lifecycle.
• Groups offer a way to organize and manage the actions needed to complete a project.
• The Project Management Institute (PMI) lists five Process Groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing.
• Each group has specific processes that must be completed before moving to the next phase to keep the project organized.
• These Process Groups can be used across many industries, like construction, aerospace, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, marketing, IT, and accounting.
• They can work independently of the chosen development method, whether it’s predictive, agile, adaptive, or hybrid, but are best for predictive or waterfall approaches.

Initiating Process Group

• Project management involves five key process groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing.
• The initiating Process Group focuses on authorizing a project or phase and setting its foundation.
• The initiating stage involves Developing the Project Charter and Identifying Stakeholders.

Developing a Project Charter

• Creating a project charter means making a formal document that approves a project or phase.
• It also outlines what’s needed to meet the expectations of stakeholders.
• A project starts once a business need is addressed, a solution is chosen, and a decision to invest is made.
• An approved project charter formally starts the project.

Key points about the project charter

• Projects usually start to address business needs or react to outside influences.
• These situations often lead to documents like needs analyses, feasibility studies, or business cases.
• A project charter makes sure the project fits with the organization's goals and current projects.
• The project sponsor or project manager can create the project charter along with the initiating entity.
• The cooperation lets the project manager fully understand the project's purpose, goals, and benefits.
• The charter also gives the project manager the power to plan, execute, and oversee the project.
• External parties like a sponsor, the Project Management Office (PMO), or a Portfolio Steering Committee authorize projects.
• They might create the charter or delegate that task to the project manager with the project sponsor, as the funding source, playing a key role.
• Identifying the project manager early, ideally when making the charter but before the planning phase, is essential.
• This ensures they can allocate resources and lead project activities effectively.
• A project charter isn’t a legal contract because it doesn’t involve exchanging money or consideration.
• Instead, it’s a basic document that clarifies and formalizes the project's start.
• Creating a project charter typically happens once or at key points during the project lifecycle.

Inputs, Tools and Outputs

• Making a project charter involves specific inputs, tools, techniques, and outputs.
• Following this process helps a project charter lay a strong foundation, aligning with the organization’s goals and giving the project manager the needed authority.

Business Documents

• Two key business documents serve as inputs, the Business Case and the Benefits Management plan.
• A business case is a vital document that justifies the need for a project by detailing the project's purpose, benefits, costs, risks, and potential impact, acting as a roadmap for decision-makers.
• Without a clear business case, challenges securing funding and resources rise.
• The benefits management plan details when and how project benefits will be realized, with ways to measure those benefits that refer to outcomes, actions, attitudes, products, services, or results.
• It provides value to the sponsoring organization and those who benefit from the project, and starts early in the project lifecycle by identifying target benefits.
• Agreements are documents or communications defining initial project intentions.
• This can include contracts, service-level agreements (SLAs), memoranda of understanding (MOUs), letters of agreement, verbal agreements, purchase orders, and emails.
• Agreements come in varying complexity, from straightforward to complex with concurrent or sequential contracts.
• Regardless of complexity, agreements must follow local, national, and international laws.
• Additional Inputs include Enterprise Environmental Factors and Organizational Process Assets.

Overview of Tools and Techniques

• Expert judgment uses insights from experts with specialized knowledge to provide guidance.
• Brainstorming is a group technique for generating ideas, guided by a facilitator, analyzing ideas to gather data and insights.
• Focus groups gather input from stakeholders and experts with a skilled moderator to encourage open dialogue.
• Interviews gather information from stakeholders, formally or informally, identifying project features and deliverables.
• Facilitation guides a group to a decision, solution, or conclusion ensuring inclusive participation, mutual understanding, acknowledged contributions, support for outcomes, and follow-up on action items.
• Conflict management involves establishing team rules and communication, minimizing conflict stemming from resource limits, scheduling differences, or work styles

Meeting Management

• Effective meetings rely on interpersonal and team skills, with proper agenda, punctuality, participant selection, focus, issue addressing, action item documentation, and assigned responsibilities.
• Meetings facilitate communication, supported by tools like email and collaborative platforms serving purposes like decision-making, issue resolution, lessons learned, project kickoffs, sprint planning, and status updates.
• Gatherings maintain alignment and advancing goals.

Outputs

• The primary outputs include the Project Charter and the Assumption Log.

Overview of Tools and Techniques

• Expert judgment involves expertise from individuals with specialized knowledge, skills drawing from education, training, and experience.
• Brainstorming is a collaborative method for quick idea generation with idea generation and analysis phases to explore solutions and gain input.
• Focus groups are engaging, interactive sessions with stakeholders and experts sharing expectations and attitudes.
• Interviews are a direct data collection method and can uncover project features and deliverables.
• Facilitation includes participation, understanding, recognition, support, and follow-up and is necessary for collaboration and alignment.
• Conflict management minimizes conflict through rules, reducing issues from resource limits, and is essential for communication, planning, and role clarity.
• Efficient meeting management relies on organizational skills, agendas, punctuality, participant selection, issue resolution, and assigned responsibilities.

Meetings

• Meetings facilitate communication and are essential for decision-making, problem-solving aligned with project objectives.

Outputs

• The primary outputs are the Project Charter and the Assumption Log.

Project Charter

• A project charter is an official document to authorize a project’s existence, granting the project manager authority to allocate resources including the: project title, dates, manager responsibilities, business need, description, budget, sponsor responsibilities, and sponsor sign-off.

Assumption Log

• The assumption log records all assumptions and constraints throughout the project lifecycle, tracked for updates and resolution.

Identify Stakeholders

• Identifying stakeholders is key to pinpointing the people or groups with a stake in the project and understanding their interests, involvement, influence, and impact to tailor the approach and engage the right people.
• Stakeholder identification is an ongoing process requiring regular revisiting and analysis.

Inputs

• Inputs generally include outputs of previous processes, expert judgement, meetings, data gathering, analysis, and data representation.

Stakeholder Analysis

• Stakeholder Analysis systematically gathers data determining whose interests should be considered.
• Stakeholder analysis helps identify key stakeholders, roles, positions, expectations, attitudes, and level of interest.
• Stakeholders bring diverse perspectives, including interest, rights, ownership, knowledge and contribution.
• Understanding these factors leads to collaborative relationships.

Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix

• A Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix evaluates and compares current engagement levels.
• Stakeholder engagement includes:
  • Unaware: Not informed about the project.
  • Resistant: Opposed to changes from the project.
  • Neutral: Informed but neither supportive nor opposed.
  • Supportive: Actively supportive of the project.
  • Leading: Actively engaged in ensuring the project's success.
• The matrix visually illustrates the gap between current and desired engagement levels, highlighting efforts to strengthen relationships, securing alignment, and project success.

Stakeholder Mapping and Representation

• Effective stakeholder mapping identifies key players and aligns strategies with stakeholder needs.

Power/Interest Grid

• A power/interest grid organizes stakeholders based on: power authority, level of interest, influence capacity, and impact potential.
• The Power/Interest Grid focuses on critical stakeholders.

Stakeholder Cube

• Stakeholder cube visualizes stakeholders in 3D to develop engagement strategies and is ideal for a comprehensive view of stakeholder interactions.

Salience Model

• The salience Model method evaluates stakeholders based on: power, urgency, legitimacy, and proximity.
• The Salience Model helps project teams with networks determine the priority of each stakeholder

Directions of Influence

• This involves categories like:
  • Upward: Senior management, sponsors, steering committees.
  • Downward: Team members, specialists.
  • Outward: External parties, suppliers, regulators, end-users.
  • Sideward: Peer-level stakeholders, other managers.
• Understanding influence enables project leaders to prioritize and focus efforts where they will have the most impact.
• Prioritization is essential for managing resources effectively.