Key Project Management Concepts

Overview

Overview

This chapter's primary objective is to list and explain the key concepts related to project management and describe important benefits related to projects as well as the formal study of project management. This chapter provides an overview of project management, defining both projects and project management and exploring the difference between project management and operations management. Technological innovations and disruptions, and constantly changing social and economic conditions locally and all across the world impose new burdens on the organizations to shorten the time needed to develop and deliver new products and services that would increase organizations' competitive advantage. Therefore, many organizations have become more aware of adopting a systematic project management approach that can drive the change they desire. This chapter also provides the concepts of project life cycle, project management process groups, and project management knowledge areas according to the PMBOK Guide 6th Edition.

Source: Abdullah Oguz, https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/project-management-navigating-the-complexity/chapter/1-0-learning-objectives-and-overview/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Definition and Key Concepts of Project Management

Projects are defined by PMBOK Guide 6th and 7th editions as "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result". These two characteristics will be detailed in the following section "Project Characteristics". Besides, key project management concepts, which are constraints, key success factors, project life cycle, project process groups, and knowledge areas, will be delineated.

All of us are engaged in projects on a regular basis in our daily lives, and we use the term "project" frequently in our daily conversations. Although it had not been put forward in an organized way, people have been undertaking projects since the earliest days of organized human activity when our prehistoric ancestors had hunting parties. Large complex undertakings such as the seven wonders of the world including the only surviving artifact, the pyramids of Giza, were also projects. Even something as simple as creating a dinner or picking up your daughter from school can be considered a project. Renovating our house's garage, planning a Disney vacation for kids, getting married, and achieving a degree, diploma or certificate are all projects as well. One of the common and most utilized project software programs, Microsoft Project Professional 2019, provides a "Wedding Planner" template.

Examples of some projects and their outcomes can be given as planning and executing the summer and winter Olympic games, building the Great Wall of China, developing the COVID-19 vaccine, constructing the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement, preparation, and publication of a journal or a project management textbook, building the Suez Canal, development of a commercial jet airplane such as Airbus A380 and Boeing 787, developing or modifying software packages, and successfully launching the Hubble Space Telescope. Besides these far-famed projects, Project Management Institute's (PMI) web pages on "PMI Project of the Year Award" and "Most Influential Projects" would be very helpful to be familiar with some of the recent ongoing or successful, and influential projects implemented all across the world.

Organizations of all shapes and sizes continue to transform the ways they innovate and deliver to continuously improve customer satisfaction levels. If an organization wants to increase its revenue and profit, gain more market share, increase the number of loyal customers, and ultimately obtain a stronghold in its market, it needs to plan and execute projects that will lead to and drive change rather than just performing and relying on routine daily tasks. If we have a grocery market, selling the same products every day to the customers would help us maintain the profits at a level we can survive. However, consider that there is another grocery market started to operate in our neighborhood. Besides traditional in-person shopping, we all witness a significant surge in electronic commerce websites' product portfolio and sales (e.g., web-based businesses such as Amazon and AliExpress, click and mortar businesses such as Walmart and Target). Together, both factors, a grocery market in the neighborhood and e-commerce websites, could lead to a downward trend in sales and profit for our grocery market. Thus, even to protect our current position, we may have to come up with new ideas that have not been implemented by us before. We can add new brands to our shelves, offer new product lines, expand the store to accommodate more products, offer promotions to attract more customers, create social media and YouTube videos, launch a new e-commerce website, or establish a partnership with food delivery companies such as Grubhub and Uber eats. All of these ideas require preparing a business case to evaluate the feasibility of these ideas. If we decide to proceed with this idea, we can initiate a project to generate outcomes that would produce tangible and intangible benefits for our grocery market. Disruption is the new normal, but when an organization introduces change, it must be done correctly. Succeeding in such turbulent times means organizations cannot afford to waste precious resources on failed projects. This is the primary reason why many organizations recognize tools, techniques, and processes associated with project management, and implement a systematic project management approach relying on best practices and lessons learned.

Project Characteristics

PMBOK Guides define a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The starting point in discussing how projects should be properly managed involves evaluating how we identify a project and understanding how we differentiate it from daily operations, and hence, clearly outline which tasks cannot be defined as a project. Therefore, it is of high importance to distinguish between a project and a process (or an operation that is a routine task repeated regularly).

A project has two primary attributes that distinguish it from ongoing and routine works that are business operations. They can be listed as below:

1. Projects and their outcomes are unique.
2. Projects are temporary, that is, they have a definite beginning and ending date.

Projects are completed when the project goals are achieved or it's determined that the project is no longer viable. Eventually, a successful project meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders.

In the following subsections, let us discuss these two distinctive characteristics.

Unique outcome

Projects produce unique products, services, or results. Projects exist to bring about a product, service, process, or outcome that hasn't existed or been used before by the implementing organization or beneficiaries. While some projects are based on previous projects that were carried out in a similar fashion, each project is unique and begins with a business case and project charter. Constructing a replica of a building should be also considered a project although the same architectural blueprints are used. Although containing repetitive elements, this new construction work requires conceptualization and planning. A project manager is assigned to that project, who creates, develops, and manages a new project team and prepares detailed planning for the project constraints such as scope, schedule, budget, resources, risks, and quality. That building may be constructed in the same area (even next to the existing building) or another city, state, or country. Naturally, construction at other locations could necessitate substantial customization (tailoring) taking into account the internal influencers as well as external influencers such as weather, legislative regulations, and supply chain factors in new locations.

Projects can involve developing and producing a new deliverable. Besides, in many cases, they may address improving and modifying an existing deliverable. Examples of projects can be listed as below:

1. Modification of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system by revising the current modules and adding new modules,
2. Installing new safety features to a vehicle (e.g., new airbags, traction systems, accident prevention systems),
3. Remodeling a building or a parking lot,
4. Renovating the power lines all across a city or state,
5. Reorganizing the workflow in a workplace such as a restaurant, grocery market, local motor vehicles bureau, and a library,
6. Creating a designated area for self-checkout kiosks in markets,
7. Creating a new TV, YouTube, or social media advertisement for a hand sanitizer.

Each project requires a unique approach based on the objectives to be achieved, the complexity and/or the size of the work required, the number, interests, and powers of stakeholders involved, and the clarity of the solutions being pursued. Those skilled in the art and science of project management can tailor the use of tools, techniques, and processes to maximize the value delivered to and by the organizations.

When the project deliverables are inspected and accepted by the client (i.e., customer or product owner), and the project is closed, the project manager can hand over the deliverables to the operational units which can be either internal or external clients. For example, if the project's objective was to create a new payroll information system in an organization, the system is delivered to the IT department and/or the payroll department of the organization. From there, these functional departments can utilize and maintain the system. The payroll department can pay the employees' salaries every month based on the inputs entered into the system. Paying salaries to these employees regularly becomes an operation (a routine task). Thus, the organization can gain benefits from the new system since payrolls are computed properly with minimum acceptable errors and by avoiding human errors. However, whenever there is a new need to modify the system or purchase a new one, this should be treated as a new project, which will require the establishment of a new project team and the assignment of a project manager. Therefore, this leads us to the second characteristic of a project, which is its temporary nature.

Temporary Nature

The second characteristic that distinguishes a project from an ongoing work is its temporary nature. Projects are not an everyday business process and have a definite beginning date and an end date. A project is assigned a schedule with a certain completion date because the ultimate objective of a project is to benefit from its deliverables. Therefore, a significant portion of project effort is dedicated to ensuring that the project is completed at the appointed time. To do this, schedules are created to explicitly indicate when tasks should begin and end. Activity network diagrams and Gantt charts help determine, visualize, and monitor the schedule of the whole project and the interdependence among project activities. Projects can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

In contrast with projects, operations are ongoing and repetitive. They involve work that is continuous without an ending date wherein the same processes are repeated to produce the same results. The purpose of operations is to keep the organization functioning while the purpose of a project is to meet its strategic goals and create a change in the organization to acquire new or additional tangible or intangible benefits that cannot be acquired by conducting daily operations. Projects aim at moving an organization from a current state to a future desired state where the organization could find the opportunity to move forward and improve its financial and market conditions.

To illustrate this, consider a hypothetical automaker that operates on a global scale. Designing a new SUV and its components based on a strategic objective, creating prototypes, and conducting crash and safety tests require a systematic project management approach. After delivering the final product, this SUV can be placed into the assembly line in a factory. Whenever all the parts are assembled in this manufacturing facility by workers, robotic arms, and machinery, and hundreds of vehicles are manufactured on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, this process becomes an operation. Ordering raw materials and vehicle parts to create many vehicles in the factory constitutes the operational process which also consists of the transactions occurring along the supply chain on an ongoing basis. As long as consumers demand this vehicle model and it is profitable for the company to manufacture and sell it, the company can continue manufacturing it. All these repetitive and routine manufacturing processes can be considered an operation. However, when there is a need to change some features of the vehicle (e.g., adding new airbags, modifying some engine components), the company would need to start a new project.

A project is completed when its goals are accomplished, and its deliverables are approved by the client. Sometimes projects end when it is determined that the goals and objectives cannot be accomplished or when the project outcome is no longer needed. Serious schedule delays or a need to increase the budget substantially might cause the project sponsor to consider cancellation. Some reasons to terminate the projects earlier than their scheduled completion time can be listed as follows:

1. Funding is exhausted or no longer available,
2. Resources (human or physical resources, or services) are no longer available,
3. The external client (funder) or the current or potential customers no longer wants the project completed,
4. The organization changed its strategy or determined a new priority,
5. Management decided to end the project, and
6. A legal cause or a new regulation necessitated the project to end.

It is not uncommon to terminate a project earlier than its completion time without achieving its goals and carrying out all the activities. Nevertheless, these unsuccessful projects are still considered as projects.

Case Study 1.1: Characteristics of a Project Undertaken by Grocery LLC

The uniqueness of a project and its temporary nature would help a business or organization to assess if it has a project, and hence, would need to implement a systematic project management approach and form a project team.

Consider a scenario that our organization is a grocery chain (Grocery LLC) with fifty branches across five states. During the weekends, and between 4 pm and 7 pm during the week, these branches, in general,  experience more than usual traffic of customers. Therefore, long lines form in front of the current check-out stations where the cashiers work. Sometimes, it is not possible to assign an adequate number of cashiers to all the existing stations because of the lack of personnel. The chief operations officer (COO) of Grocery LLC visited CEO's office several times to discuss potential solutions to this problem. With the help of her operations team, she prepared a business case with several solutions. During the preparation of the business case, in order to elicit the business, stakeholder, and solution requirements of these solutions, the team sent paper and e-mail surveys to all the branches to understand managers' and employees' expectations and interviewed ten managers, ten supervisors, and thirty employees who volunteered for follow-up and further examination. Furthermore, two hundred customers who volunteered and were given a $20 gift card to spend at the grocery market were interviewed when they visited these branches to do their shopping during the busy hours. The team also visited other grocery chains' markets which are the main competitors of Grocery LLC to observe their daily operations. The team also collaborated with a market research consultancy company for further analysis and to receive expert judgment. Among several options, the candidate solution with the highest priority was identified as the establishment of self-checkout areas in all the branches. This solution was discussed in the project selection committee meeting at which our organization's CFO, CTO, and senior representatives from three departments (R&D, procurement, and human resources) are the members. Based on pre-determined criteria and the weights that our organization uses for all the projects (see Chapter 2, Table 2.5), this solution was selected to proceed with as a project. The committee decided to organize the project as a program and to assign 5 project managers who are responsible for ten branches each. Grocery LLC wanted to start the project in January 2022 and finish all the works by August 2022. Once self-checkout areas are built and inspected to verify if they can be utilized to the full capacity with all the requirements met, customers will be able to check out their items themselves without the presence of cashiers, and, hence they can avoid crowded lines.

Based on this case study, we should ask, first off, if this can be considered a project. Projects are temporary, and hence have a definite start date and an end date. They result in the creation of a unique product, service, process, or outcome, and are completed when their goals and objectives have been met (or the objectives cannot be met, and accordingly they are terminated early) and finally signed off by the project sponsor and the clients (funder).

Using these criteria, let's examine if the establishment of self-checkout areas in all branches is a project:

• Is it unique?

Yes, because the self-checkout kiosks don't exist in this grocery chain. The outcome of this project offers a new way of service to the customers which would increase the speed of checkouts and reduce the lines at traditional checkout stations. The main purpose of this project is to provide faster service to the customers during busy hours. For each branch, a new design and implementation can be required due to the different layouts and sizes, and according to varying demands of the local customers. Therefore, it is also a unique endeavor for each branch.

• Is this a temporary endeavor? Is there a way to determine when the project is completed?

Yes, the project starts in January 2022 and ends in August 2022. When the kiosks are installed and the self-checkout service is offered to the customers at each branch, we can close the project and disband the project teams. Then, this will become an operation that is carried out every day.

Besides these two characteristics, we should also ask another question that is related to the constraints of a project.

• Is there a way to determine stakeholder satisfaction?

Yes, the expectations of the stakeholders will be documented in the form of requirements while preparing a needs assessment, business case, and a benefits realization plan before a project start, and during the initiation and planning processes. These requirements will be compared to the finished product to determine if the self-checkout stations could satisfy the expectations of stakeholders, primarily market employees and customers.

Case Study 1.2: Characteristics of Another Project Undertaken by Grocery LLC (M-Commerce Project) 

Consider a new scenario for Grocery LLC. Physical sales have declined since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic all across the world. Customers prefer buying online instead of visiting a store in person since they have serious concerns to contract Covid-19. Our fifty stores in five states lost around 30% of regular customers, and the revenue declined by 25% since the start of the pandemic restrictions in March 2020. Considering the pessimistic trends forecasted regarding the pandemic as well as the increasing digitalization of companies and consumers, the project selection committee decided to have a better online presence by creating a mobile app and optimizing the website for mobile devices. Therefore, our current customers who purchase goods and services from our grocery stores, as well as potential customers, will have the opportunity to purchase through their computers and smartphones. So, our team was asked to elicit the requirements by communicating with the key stakeholders such as grocery managers and employees, and customers. It was planned to start this project on May 2, 2022, and finish on October 27, 2022.

Let's evaluate this project in terms of uniqueness and temporary nature.

• Is it unique?

Yes, because the grocery chain diversifies its sales channels by strengthening its online presence through optimizing its website for mobile devices and creating a new mobile application. The outcome of this project offers a new way of service to the customers.

• Is this a temporary endeavor? Is there a way to determine when the project is completed?

Yes, the project starts on May 2, 2022, and finishes on October 27, 2022. When the mobile app is ready for the customers to install on their smartphones, and customers can view the website on their mobile devices, we can perform administrative and financial tasks to close the project, and we can disband the project team. Then, this becomes a routine task for the operational units to maintain and support the website and mobile app.

• Is there a way to determine stakeholder satisfaction?

Yes, the expectations of the stakeholders will be documented in the form of requirements while preparing a business case, and during the initiation and planning processes. The requirements for a mobile app and optimized mobile website will be compared to the finished products to determine if they satisfy the expectations of stakeholders.

Project Constraints

Projects do not live in a vacuum. They are affected by many factors including constraints, assumptions, and internal and external factors (referred to as Enterprise Environmental Factors – EEFs by PMBOK Guide 6th Edition). Three main constraints (i.e., triple or iron triangle constraints) are scope, schedule, and cost, and they are considered the main pillars of a project. They are also regarded as the main reason why we need a systematic project management approach. These primary constraints also compete with each other. Therefore, project managers should consider trade-offs among them. For example, increasing the project scope may require a revision of the schedule and budget. In many cases, expanding the project scope with more product specifications and project activities would result in a longer schedule and higher budget. This trade-off will be discussed in the following sections, and mostly in their respective chapters. Maintaining the balance among these constraints is difficult because projects are prone to change. Thus, the technical and interpersonal skills of project managers, and how they utilize the best and proven practices of project management, and the quality of a project team are essential prerequisites of conducting an effective project.

Besides triple constraints, the other three constraints which are also tightly linked to the triple constraints are resources, quality, and risks. Tightly aligned with and at the top of all these six constraints, the success of a project depends on the client and/or stakeholder satisfaction. Clients make their decisions to accept the final deliverables of a project by evaluating these constraints.

Scope

Project scope is the work performed to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions. Scope refers to what the project is trying to achieve. It entails all the work involved in delivering the project outcomes and the processes used to produce them. It reflects the purpose of the project. 

A project is built upon the scope. After all the product or service requirements are elicited from all relevant stakeholders, observations, documents, and other sources, the project manager can start working on the project activities which will be carried out to meet these requirements. After product requirements and project activities are defined, and the activities are sequenced, the project manager and the team can proceed with the estimation of activity durations, allocation of resources, estimation of costs, and identification of risks, quality, and performance metrics.

Schedule

A schedule is a model for executing the project's activities, including durations, dependencies, and other planning information. Project scheduling provides a detailed plan that represents how and when the project will carry out all the activities that would lead to the delivery of the products, services, and results defined in the project scope. It serves as a tool for communication and collaboration with all the stakeholders and managing and monitoring their expectations. It also serves as a baseline for performance reporting. While monitoring the performance and progress of a project, a schedule is assessed commonly to identify problems (e.g., delays, missed deadlines, incomplete deliverables) in the project. After the project team defines the activities based on the product and project scopes, activity durations are estimated, activities are sequenced, their interdependences are outlined, and hence, the resources can be allocated to each activity. The project schedule should also consider national, federal, or local holidays and the absence of human resources due to vacations and other issues such as sickness and family issues.

Cost

Cost is the budget approved for the project including all necessary expenses needed to deliver the project. Within organizations, project managers have to balance between not running out of money and not underspending because many projects receive funds or grants that have contract clauses with a "use it or lose it" approach to project funds. Poorly executed budget plans can result in a last-minute rush to spend the allocated funds. For virtually all projects, the cost is ultimately a limiting constraint; few projects can go over budget without eventually requiring corrective action. 

Quality

Quality is a combination of the standards and criteria to which the project's products must be delivered for them to perform effectively. As quoted by the PMBOK Guide 6th Edition from ISO 9000 standards, "quality as a delivered performance or result is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements". The product must perform to provide the functionality expected, solve the identified problem, and deliver the benefit and value expected. It must also meet other performance requirements, or service levels, such as availability, reliability, and maintainability, and have acceptable finish and polish.

Resources

In order to carry out and complete project activities, the project manager should allocate various resources such as human resources for the project team and all other activities, physical resources (e.g., equipment, materials, facilities, software, testing environments, licenses, infrastructure, and supplies), and services (e.g., consulting and subcontractors). Resources can be determined and allocated when the activities are defined and scheduled. Then, the budget for each activity can be computed based on the allocation of all resources. 

Risks

A risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives. Negative risks are called threats, and positive risks are called opportunities. Two main factors determine the severity of a risk: (1) Probability of the occurrence, and (2) impact on the project. Risk responses are planned based on the severity level.

Project Success

Project success and project management success are generally evaluated as different concepts. Project success deals with the impacts of a project's final product or service on stakeholders. Projects aim to create a unique outcome. Project management success focuses on the processes of a project including the successful accomplishment of the scope, within budget (cost), within time (schedule), and quality aspects. In our grocery chain example, we can close the project when the self-checkout areas are inspected by the inspection committee that is composed of the representatives of the operational unit which is responsible for all fifty markets, and also several store managers. The evaluation and acceptance are conducted by the inspection committee by comparing the requirements with the final deliverables, validating that all the requirements have been implemented, and the self-checkout stations are ready to use by the customers. The inspection committee checks all fifty branches to confirm if the requirements in the project scope were met, and quality standards are complied with. Let's assume that the project finished on time, and the budget was not exceeded. Therefore, we can consider this as a project management success. Eventually, we can close the project and disband the project teams.

After these self-checkout areas opened for the customers, we observed that most of the customers started to avoid these areas and continued to use checkout stations where cashiers and baggers are available even though customers waited in lines for more than ten minutes. This project was successfully managed but did not meet the client and customer expectations. Projects are initiated by organizations to address business needs (problems or opportunities) and create tangible and intangible benefits by creating an outcome that organizations can benefit from. Realized value of the project can be measured by the project stakeholders. However, our company couldn't gain the expected value. When the underlying reasons were investigated, it was found that lack of human contact was the main reason. Most of the customers, especially Generation X and baby boomers, still wanted to maintain an interaction with employees to ask for the warranties, the quality of the items, or even have a short chat with the cashiers and baggers. Since it was not a problem due to the technology but affected the solution significantly, the COO and her team decided to add some employees in these areas to help the customers. After changes were done, it was observed that more customers started using the self-checkout areas. However, the operational team decided to monitor the performance of these areas to take further actions if needed.

It is evident that not all projects benefit from successful completion. Many factors influence the success of a project. PMI 2020 Pulse of the Profession reported that 11.4% of investment is wasted due to poor project performance. What makes it worse is that this percentage spikes up to 67% in the organizations that undervalue project management as a strategic competency for driving change. PMI's same study reported that the factors responsible for the failure were lack of clearly defined and/or achievable milestones and objectives to measure progress (37%), poor communication (19%), lack of communication by senior management (18%), employee resistance (14%), and insufficient funding (9%).

Another report by the Standish Group, "CHAOS 2020: Beyond Infinity", indicated that 31% of projects were successful while 50% were challenged and 19% failed. This report referred to three factors to improve project performance, that are good sponsor, good team, and good place.

Consequently, a project should be managed effectively by a project manager and the team. If not done so, projects may fail due to the factors listed below:

• Unrealistic and vague goals
• Uncontrolled expansion of the project scope (Scope creep)
• Absent or ineffective relations with the clients/customers and other stakeholders
• Cost overruns
• Schedule delays
• The insufficient amount and/or quality of resources
• Toxic organizational culture and politics (e.g., mistreatment, aggression, incivility, harassment)
• Organizational and/or team conflicts
• Poor communication with stakeholders
• Unsatisfied stakeholders
• Ineffective quality assurance and inspections, and/or poor quality

Project Management Life Cycle and Process Groups

Projects start their life by developing the project's foundations (i.e., primary objectives, high-level scope, schedule, budget and risks, project team composition), continue with planning all the knowledge areas, executing all the activities, and producing the outcomes (i.e., products, services, or processes), and end by reaching a close-out by archiving all the documents, completing all administrative works, and disbanding the team. This is the life cycle of a project, which makes it temporary and unique. This life cycle is composed of stages or phases which are generically named as starting (initiating, conceptualization), planning (organizing and preparing), implementing (executing, carrying out), and termination (close-out, ending) (Figure 1.1). These phases can also be named differently based on the industry, product scope, project complexity and size, needs of management, legal or regulatory requirements, decision points such as go/no-go decisions, and milestone review. For example, if the project aims to create an information system such as a payroll system, project life cycle stages can be named as feasibility study, elicitation of customer requirements, development of solutions, design, creating prototypes, coding, testing, transitioning, commissioning, milestone review, lessons learned, administrative closure, and archiving.

While project life cycle stages offer a step-by-step process to manage a project, practical issues require focusing on processes and their groups as described by the PMBOK Guide 6th Edition. The project life cycle is managed by executing a series of project management activities known as project management processes. These processes are prescriptive, which means that they explicate each process within an input-output diagram where various project management tools and techniques are utilized. Although they are very helpful for project managers, PMBOK Guide 6th edition always emphasizes the tailoring of processes and techniques based on each project's own characteristics. This is why PMBOK Guide 7th Edition adopted a new approach through which the processes have been replaced by principles. Nevertheless, project managers can still benefit from the process-centered approach as processes provide a comprehensive guideline.

Each process makes use of inputs and produces outputs by using appropriate tools and techniques. These processes can be implemented globally across industries. For example, one of the processes, developing a project charter, is the starting point for all projects regardless of their industry, size, complexity, and location. This process uses business documents, agreements, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets as inputs. It produces the outputs as a project charter and assumption log by utilizing tools and techniques such as expert judgment, data gathering, interpersonal and team skills, and meetings.

Different from project life cycle phases, but in line with them, these processes are grouped inside five project management process groups according to the PMBOK Guide 6th Edition. Names of these groups and their purposes are provided below:

1. Initiating
   • To define a new project or a new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project or phase.
2. Planning
   • To establish the scope of the project, refine objectives, and define the course of action required to attain the objectives.
3. Executing
   • To complete the work defined in the project management plan to satisfy the project requirements.
4. Monitoring and Controlling
   • To track, review, and regulate the progress and performance of the project, to identify any areas in which changes to the plan are required, and to initiate the corresponding changes.
5. Closing
   • To formally complete or close the project, phase, or contract.

An important factor that distinguishes these process groups from the life cycle stages is the addition of monitoring and controlling as a separate process group. Monitoring and controlling process group is performed throughout the project as it is of high importance and necessity to ensure that the project is on the track, and to intervene in problems when detected. As seen in Figure 1.2, these process groups overlap with one another, and the sharp boundaries in the project life cycle disappear, which makes it more realistic. For instance, planning continues with lower levels of process interaction and effort while executing process group is conducted since plans and product requirements are subject to changes due to the factors such as changes in stakeholder requirements, dynamic market conditions, and technological advancements.

Project Management Knowledge Areas

Another way of categorizing processes is through the knowledge areas according to the PMBOK Guide 6th edition. These knowledge areas are defined by knowledge requirements. They are:

1. Project Integration Management
2. Project Scope Management
3. Project Schedule Management
4. Project Cost Management
5. Project Quality Management
6. Project Resource Management
7. Project Communications Management
8. Project Risk Management
9. Project Procurement Management
10. Project Stakeholder Management

These knowledge areas constitute the basic layout of almost all project management textbooks. This also would be the main approach we are following throughout this book.

Key Takeaways

• A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
• A project has two distinctive characteristics that distinguish it from ongoing and routine works – business operations. Projects are unique and temporary.
• Projects are confined to a variety of constraints. Triple (iron triangle) constraints are scope, schedule, and cost. Besides, and tightly linked with triple constraints, resources, quality, and risks are also evaluated as constraints.
• Project success deals with the impacts of a project's final product or service on stakeholders. Project management success focuses on the processes of a project including the successful accomplishment of the scope, within budget (cost), within time (schedule), and quality aspects. A project may be successfully managed but not meet the client or customer's expectations.
• The project life cycle is composed of phases which are generically named as starting (initiating, conceptualization), planning (organizing and preparing), implementing (executing, carrying out), and termination (close-out, ending).
• Different from project life cycle phases, but in line with them, processes are grouped inside five project management process groups according to the PMBOK Guide 6th Edition. They are named initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.
• Project management is also assessed in terms of knowledge areas that constitute the basic layout of most of the project management textbooks.