© Cheetah Learning® LLC 1 ://...PMBOK® Guide: A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge The Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) A Guide to the Project Management

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PMBOK® Guide: A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge

The Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) A Guide to the Project Management Body of

Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) Sixth Edition or PMBOK® Guide, is the ANSI Standard that

defines accepted concepts, processes, tools, and techniques for managing projects. The

information contained in the PMBOK® Guide provides a common language for project

management used by companies around the world. The PMBOK® Guide is not a project

management methodology. However, you can use the PMBOK® Guide to help you

formulate or better understand a project management methodology that will work for

your company with your project types.

For example, Cheetah Project Management is a project management methodology that

uses accelerated learning techniques aligned with the guidelines in the PMBOK® Guide.

By combining accelerated learning techniques with project management processes,

Cheetah Project Management is a very fast methodology for managing projects.

The purpose of this document (Cheetah Learning’s PMBOK Code Cracker) is to give you

a brief overview of the PMBOK® Guide and how it is organized. We created this

overview because the PMBOK® Guide is 756 pages and organized as a comprehensive

summary of the generally agreed upon “body of knowledge” of Project Management

worldwide by a committee made up of hundreds of Project Management Professionals

from around the world. Once you grasp how it is organized, you can better assimilate

the information for your benefit.

Let’s begin!

How the PMBOK® Guide is organized

The PMBOK® Guide is organized in the following way:

Part One includes 13 Chapters

Part Two contains 6 Chapters

There are 6 Appendices

References

Glossary

Index


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Let’s Start by Skipping Ahead to Part Two of the PMBOK® Guide

Part Two of the PMBOK® Guide is the actual Standard for Project Management and is

quite useful to see precisely how and where project management fits in the grand

scheme of modern management science. It will help you to make sense too of how it fits

in with other management practices in your organization. You will also start to see how

improving your project management performance will improve your company’s overall

performance.

Part Two of the PMBOK® Guide defines key project management concepts including

contextual information about project management, definition for each of the five process

groups and describes the key benefits, inputs, and outputs for each project management

process, AND serves as the foundation and framework for Part One of the PMBOK®

Guide.

To start, projects are organized and carried out using an established process, from

beginning to end and are organized into five process groups:

1 Initiating 2 Planning 3 Executing 4 Monitoring & Controlling 5 Closing

Five Project Management Process Groups

When you reflect on how you do projects, you can easily identify that you: start a

project (initiating), you do some series of activities to plan the project (planning), you

do the work of the project (executing), you periodically assess how your project is going

(monitoring and controlling), and you complete the project (closing). What you do

during those stages of your project to manage the progression of the project is what is

covered in Part One of the PMBOK® Guide.

Now back to Part One – Chapters 1 - 3

The 1st chapter of the PMBOK® Guide covers the overview, purpose as well as

foundational elements; chapter 2 covers the project environment and framework;

chapter 3 covers the role of the project manager; and beginning with Chapter 4 you find

the specific information on the Knowledge Areas and the relationships between Project



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Management Processes. This may start to seem overwhelming at first. You can relax,

though! You’ll be coached throughout your exam prep course with a number of different

illustrations, explanations, and other learning aids that will help to reinforce a proper

understanding of these concepts.

Chapters 4-13

Chapters 4 through 13 address each of the defined project management Knowledge

Areas. These Knowledge Areas comprise the majority of the PMBOK® Guide. They

represent the fundamental practices of what you do to manage a project. Shown on the

next page are the ten Knowledge Areas.

The ten Knowledge Areas are:

1 Integration Management

2 Scope Management

3 Schedule Management

4 Cost Management

5 Quality Management

6 Resource Management

7 Communications Management

8 Risk Management

9 Procurement Management

10 Stakeholder Management

Each of the five project management Process Groups identified in Part Two (initiating,

planning, executing, monitoring & controlling and closing) use a series of project

management activities defined in each of the Knowledge Areas in Part One. The

PMBOK® Guide calls the project management activities, described in these Knowledge

Area chapters, “processes.”

The dual use of the term “process” is confusing at first. For clarity, we will refer to the

five steps for doing project management as the five project management process

groups. The Knowledge Area processes, we will refer to as processes.

Each process in the knowledge areas is made up of inputs, tools and techniques, and

outputs. This conceptual format is actually very useful. Inputs are deliverables. Tools

and techniques are applied to these deliverables resulting in outputs which, in turn,

become deliverables as inputs to other processes.

The figure on the next page shows how the five project management process groups

relate to the knowledge area processes.



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The Project Management Processes

Project Management Processes are grouped into five categories known as the Project

Management Process Groups of Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and

Controlling, and Closing, as described in the previous section. Project Management

Process Groups remain consistent within every project.

Project Management Processes = Five Project Management Process Groups

The Project Life Cycle

A Project Life Cycle is a collection of generally sequential and sometimes overlapping

project phases. The Project Life Cycle defines the beginning and end of a particular

project. For example, the Project Life Cycle for a software project (shown below) is the

Design Phase. Then it’s turned over to the technical writers for the Writing the Manual

Phase. Then another project team is assembled for the testing phase. And the last life

cycle phase is the Roll Out Phase.

The trick to understand here is that the Five Project Management Process Groups repeat

within each phase of the project; initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and

controlling, and closing are repeated for Life Cycle Phase 1, 2, 3 & 4.

The number of phases within a Project Life Cycle is dependent on the specific project. A

project can have a single phase, some can have three or four phases in their Project Life

Cycle, while others can have six, eight or more.

All Five Project Management Process Groups exist within every Project Life Cycle Phase.

This means you initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control, and close in each life cycle

phase. Most project managers and project stakeholders focus on the Project Life Cycle

Phases for planning and tracking purposes.

Project Life Cycle Phases for A Software Project

Design Write Manual

Acme Software Project

Test Roll Out



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Project Management Knowledge Areas

You should now have a pretty good understanding of how the PMBOK® Guide addresses

the five project management process groups. But the project management process of

initiate, plan, execute, monitor, and close is really only the framework for the practice of

modern project management.

What about the nuts and bolts of the profession? The working tools? The PMBOK® Guide

presents these tools as Knowledge Areas.

There are ten defined Knowledge Areas in the PMBOK® Guide. Each addresses a specific

key project management discipline. For example, Chapter 5 of the PMBOK® Guide

addresses the Knowledge Area of Project Scope Management, where you learn the

accepted standards, tools and techniques used to complete:

Plan Scope Management

Collect Requirements

Define Scope

Create the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Validate Scope

Control Scope

The methodology addressed in each of the knowledge areas is presented as processes.

To continue with our Chapter 5 example, the PMBOK® Guide defines Project Scope

Management as a set of six major processes:

Plan Scope Management: The process of creating the scope management plan the

documents how the project and product scope will be defined, validated, and

controlled.

Collect Requirements: The process of defining and documenting stakeholders’

needs to meet the project objectives.

Define Scope: The process of developing a detailed description of the project and

product.

Create WBS: The process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into

smaller, more manageable components.

Validate Scope: The process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project

deliverables.

Control Scope: The process of monitoring the status of the project and product

scope and managing changes to the scope baseline.



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The ten knowledge areas are presented in PMBOK® Guide Chapters 4 through

13 as follows:

Chapter 4: Project Integration Management - Defines seven major processes used

to integrate all the component pieces of a project into a whole.

Chapter 5: Project Scope Management - Defines six major processes used to

carefully define, execute, and control the scope of a project.

Chapter 6: Project Schedule Management - Defines six major processes used to

carefully characterize project activities, identify their interdependencies, schedule

their performance, and control the project schedule.

Chapter 7: Project Cost Management - Defines four major processes used to plan

project resources, estimate costs and budgets, and control project costs.

Chapter 8: Project Quality Management - Defines three major processes used to

plan, manage, and control project quality.

Chapter 9: Project Resource Management – Defines six major processes used to

plan, estimate activity and acquire resources, develop and manage team and

control resources acquisition, and project team development.

Chapter 10: Project Communications Management - Defines three major processes

used to develop plan, manage, and monitor communications.

Chapter 11: Project Risk Management - Defines seven major processes used to

plan, identify and quantify project risks, as well as develop and implement

responses to risks and monitor project risks

Chapter 12: Project Procurement Management - Defines three major processes

used to plan, conduct and control contracts with project suppliers and sub-

contractors.

Chapter 13: Project Stakeholder Management - Defines four major processes used

to identify, plan, manage, and monitor stakeholder engagement.



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Following through with your process:

Inputs, Tools and Techniques, and Outputs

You’ll find that Chapters 4-13 of the PMBOK® Guide are presented in an identical

format. Each chapter begins with a brief overview of every major process within the

knowledge area, and then presents a more detailed explanation of each process within

the knowledge area. Each detailed explanation is presented in three parts, which include

a set of inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs.

Inputs: The ingredients for your recipe

Each major process begins with a set of Inputs. These are the factors that initially go

into the particular process - the documents, information, procedures, policies,

supporting detail, etc. You may view these Inputs as the ingredients necessary to

successfully perform the process.

If the process at hand was to assemble a 6-foot-long sandwich for your party, then the

inputs might be sandwich roll, sliced cheese, sliced meats, vegetables, and condiments.

These inputs may have been the outputs of other processes such as growing your own

vegetables.

Tools and Techniques: All that you need for your kitchen

Following Inputs comes a set of Tools and Techniques. These are the project

management methodologies and systems, such as network diagramming, earned value

analysis, PERT, estimating tools, etc.

In our 6-foot sandwich making example: tools and techniques might include slicing

techniques, assembly methods, spillage analysis, condiment analysis, negotiating onion

placement, etc.

Outputs: Assembled Sandwich, let the party begin!

As a result of applying tools and techniques an output is produced. Outputs are

deliverables - the tangible results from each major process.

In the sandwich-making example, the output would be the 6-foot assembled sandwich.

This sandwich might become an input to setting up your buffet table.



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The forty-nine processes

Within the ten Knowledge Areas, there are a total of forty-nine (49) processes. Each of

these processes contains a set of inputs, a set of tools and techniques, and a set of

outputs. The precise number of items in each set varies.

To give you an example, in Chapter 8 of the PMBOK® Guide: Project Quality

Management, Plan Quality is identified as one of three major Quality Management

processes. Below is a run-down of what is included in each set for this process:

Inputs to the Plan Quality process are listed as:

Project Charter

Project Management Plan

Project Documents:

o Assumption log

o Requirements documentation

o Requirements traceability matrix

o Risk register

o Stakeholder register

Enterprise environmental factors

Organizational process assets

Tools and Techniques are listed as:

Expert Judgement

Data Gathering

o Benchmarking

o Brainstorming

o interviews

Data Analysis

o Cost-benefit analysis

o Cost of quality

Decision Making

Data Representation

o Flowcharts

o Logical data module

o Matrix diagrams

o Mindmapping

Test and inspection planning

Meetings



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Outputs are listed as:

Quality Management Plan

Quality Metrics

PM Plan updates

Project Document Updates

o Lessons learned register

o Requirements traceability matrix

o Risk register

o Stakeholder register

From this example, you can see that the purpose of the Plan Quality process is to

ultimately produce the Quality Management Plan. In order to develop this Quality Plan,

tools and techniques are used. The scope baseline, stakeholder register, cost

performance baseline, schedule baseline, risk register, enterprise environmental factors,

and organizational process assets, or the inputs, are needed to use for reference.

Where did these come from? They are the outputs of other processes. So you can see

that each step, or set, in the process is reliant on the other in order to produce the

desired outcome, deliverable, or output.

The Interplay between the Project Management Process Groups

The illustration on page 5 shows the relationship between the Knowledge Area Processes

and the Project Management Process Groups. The PM Process Groups are iterative and

integrative by nature. That is to say, many processes groups (initiating, planning,

executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing) are revisited many times before a

project is complete. Because of this, there is no distinct boundaries between the five

project management process groups of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and

closing (also called the Project Management Processes.)

For example, the process group “planning” may need to be revisited at any time during

Executing and Controlling. Executing and controlling process groups are essentially

performed at the same time. The Closing processes are used many times during the

project as individual work packages are completed and accepted.

As a result of all of this, the process groups in the Project Management Processes are

expected to overlap. The illustration on Page 5 shows the iterative, back-and-forth,

interplay between phases/processes.



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The PMBOK® Guide serves as a guide to create or enhance a project management

methodology that can be used by you and your company to improve the way you

manage projects. If nothing more, it gives you a common set of terminology to use

when discussing project management.

Use it as a reference to increase your ability to bring projects in on time, within budget

and in line with the requirements of the customer.

Relationship of the PMBOK to Certification Exams

Two of the Project Management Institute PMI’s certification exams test knowledge of the

PMBOK - the Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Certified Associate in Project

Management (CAPM®) Certification Exams

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To best prepare for the PMP or CAPM exam, you need to have a

comprehensive understanding of the PMBOK® Guide and a deep intuitive understanding

of how the processes fit together. You need to understand how you as a project

manager would make decisions the “PMI way” in a wide variety of scenarios (many may

be unrelated to what you yourself have experienced as a project manager).

In the Cheetah Learning Accelerated Exam Prep® for the PMP® and CAPM® Courses,

Cheetah students work through scenarios to understand how to apply the PMBOK®

Guide concepts in various situations. These sessions help people be able to logically

deduce the correct answers on these very complicated exams.

With this level of preparation, you are better able to answer the complex scenario

questions on the actual exam. These require you to not only know the PMBOK®

Guide concepts but be able to apply them to a wide variety of project management

challenges. Most people can be successful in this exam with this level of preparation and

under guidance from a skilled PMP or CAPM coach. The Cheetah Exam Prep® for the

PMP® and CAPM® exam courses significantly increase your chances of passing these

exams.

If you need a fast, and guaranteed approach to passing the PMP Exam – visit Cheetah

Learning or call us at 855-286-9900.



