Chapter 5. Project PlanningFacilitating Processes

Chapter 5. Project Planning Facilitating Processes

Terms you'll need to understand:

• Quality, organizational, and communication planning

• Staff acquisition

• Risk management

• Quality management

• Procurement and solicitation planning

• Risk identification

• Qualitative risk analysis

• Quantitative risk analysis

• Risk response planning

• Risk event

• Resource pool

• Procurement management plan

• Responsibility matrix

• Risk rating matrix

• Contingency plan

• Fallback plan

• Decision tree

• Avoidance

• Mitigation

• Acceptance

• Transference

Techniques and concepts you'll need to master:

• The impact of the core and facilitating planning processes on the core processes

• The differences between risk management planning and risk response planning

• The differences among resource planning, organizational planning, and communications planning

• The purpose and key elements of each supplemental project plan

• Key factors for communications planning

• HR responsibilities of the project manager

• Quality management principles and the PMI quality definition philosophy, and quality principles

• In what ways quality management and project management are similar

• Costs and responsibilities of quality management

• How quality management impacts project success

• What the differences among quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control are

• Who the pioneers in quality management are and what they are known for

• The key PMI risk management principles and risk management tools

• The different types and the common sources of project risk and risk response strategies

• The key PMI procurement management principles and project management skills used in procurement management

• Key contract facts

• The purpose, risk, and advantages of each contract type

• Key factors in the "build versus buy" decision

• Advantages of centralized versus decentralized contracting organizations

Project planning involves more than the scope, time, and cost elements we reviewed in the last chapter. The project planning process also sets the stage for project communications, project quality, project risk management, procurement management activities, and the project team. The PMBOK refers to these activities as the facilitating processes of project planning. These facilitating planning processes are depicted in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1. Facilitating project planning processes.

This subject area, more than any other we discuss in this book, may best illustrate PMI's philosophy that effective project management is proactive, that the project manager should be in control of the project (and not the other way around), and that all project management activities should be planned.

All project management activities should be "thought about" and planned.

Communications, risk, and quality project management are excellent examples of proactive project management.

Although most project managers have considerable experience with the core planning steps, there is a much wider range of experience with the facilitating planning processes. Depending on your industry, the mission-critical level of your projects, and the project management methodology of your organization, your exposure to disciplined risk management, quality management, and procurement management procedures may be quite limited. In addition, even when people are experienced in these areas, they often find that the techniques and terms they have utilized are not always consistent with PMI's methodology or philosophy.

On top of all this, the PMBOK coverage of the core and facilitating planning processes tends to make the project planning process seem less intuitive and much more complicated than it really is.

To streamline your exam preparations, we will clarify these process relationships, emphasize the "gotta-know" concepts and terms that are important to PMI, and identify the "common" gaps you may need to close to be ready for the exam questions related to the facilitating project planning processes.