Project Management Processes

In Session 10 of Pathways to Project Management (a publication of APM), we find a categorisation of the processes of project management:

1. Processes that define what need to be achieved.  Theses are what may be called problem and goal identification activities.  They are essential to clarify what we are trying to achieve, why we are trying to achieve them, and are they worth the cost involved?  Activities include business case and requirements development, as well as project management strategy and planning. 

2. Processes that plan the work required to achieve what needs to be done.  Once we know what we want to achieve, we need to think about the actual steps that need to be done to ahiceve the work.

3. Processes that monitor the work to ensure it will be done a planned.  Project need to achieve the constraints of scope, cost, and schedule.  It is critical to monitor the progress of the work to give us a good sense of how well we are going according to plan.

4. Processes that control change within the project environment.  These are the scope / budget / schedule change management activities.  All projects can expect change. Also included here are the Risk Management activities, which makes sense because risks are a source of project change.

5. Process that ensure the outputs of the project are fit for purpose.  In other words, quality assurance. It is interesting to compare how this differs from the ‘processes that monitor the work to ensure it will be done as planned.’ Does monitoring that the work is being done as planned exclude ensuring that the work done was fit for purpose?

6. Processes that ensure the outputs of the project are successfully launched in the business / customer environment.  In other words, handing over the outputs for the purpose of using the results of the project.

7. Processes that engage and motivate the stakeholders of the project.  Externally focused communication to ensure support for the project continues.  A project fails when it can no longer find support from its stakeholders.

How does this list compare with PMI’s Project Management Processes Groups?  The PMBOk Guide process groups are more abstract, and are not really at the same level as the Pathways process categories.  Cannot really do a useful comparison at this level.

Pathways	PMBOK Guide Process Groups
1. Define what needs to be achieved	Initiating
2. Plan the work	Planning
3. Monitor the work	Monitoring & Controlling
4. Control change	Monitoring & Controlling
5. Ensure fitness for purpose	Executing
6. Handover	Closing
7. Stakeholder management	Executing