Understanding PMI s Project Planning Process Group

Understanding PMI's Project Planning Process Group

After you are ready to plan your project, you have passed through the initiation processes. Remember what that means? It means that you possess formal authorization to conduct the work of the project. But what work will you do? What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

To answer these questions, start from what you know. There are two outputs from the initiation process group. Always start with the information necessary to proceed. Recall that PMI refers to this initial information for each process as the process's inputs. So, start with the project charter and preliminary scope statement and refine the project documents from there. Figure 3.1 shows how the processes in the planning group are related.

Figure 3.1. The planning process group process interactions.

Think of the project initiation progress group as the processes that answer the what and why questions. The project planning processes answer the how questions. The planning processes result in outputs that explain how the project will progress toward reaching its goals.

Because planning includes so many processes, be prepared to answer many questions in this area on the exam. As with all other process groups, make sure you know the inputs, tools, techniques, and outputs of each process. It helps to draw your own process flow. Just the act of physically drawing the process flow in each process group helps you remember how the processes relate to one another.

PMI is very explicit in stressing the importance of planning. Far too many projects suffer from the poor practice of starting work before anyone really knows what needs to be done. This almost always results in wasted effort and lost time. Proper planning requires good communication among the team and sound leadership from the project manager. The result is a project team that is more informed and prepared to carry out the work required to meet the project's goals. You should expect to see several questions on the exam that require you to understand the importance of fully planning before starting work.

Because planning is such a large process group, the material is divided into two separate chapters. This chapter covers the general concepts of planning and the processes that relate to the development of project baselines, including the following topics:

• Cost

• Schedule

• Scope

Chapter 4, "Elements of Project Planning," covers the remaining project planning processes that support project planning by applying more details to the baselines. Topics covered in Chapter 4 include these topics:

• Communications

• Human resources

• Procurement

• Quality

• Risk