Subtitles of the Movie

So you can define in a broad way what the five process groups are. In this movie, we will review a high-level summary of the interaction between the processes, completing our larger picture of project management before we begin zooming in and further dissecting each piece of the picture, which we will later do beginning with our review of the Knowledge Areas. Starting off with our diagram, we see here our five process groups; initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing. I've already queued you in that these processes are interrelated, that they are iterative and they often rely on information from the others. I'll start off by introducing you to two terms you will become very familiar with in the context of our material and they're terms you'll most likely use often, so nothing new. And they are inputs and outputs. Very basic, but let's define how the PMBOK Guide uses them. All of our processes within our process groups have inputs and outputs. An input is any item that a process requires in order to move forward. For example, in order to develop our project charter, one of the things you need is the contract. The contract is an input. An output is a product, service or result of a process. In our example we just used, develop project charter, the output is the project charter. It is the document that results from that process. Many times outputs will become an input into the next process. What we've just discussed is one of the ways that the processes interact with one another. Before we initiate a project or project phase, it is already influenced by several existing factors. Some of these factors we've already discussed and some we haven't. Let's take a moment to go through them and introduce the new ones. One of the influencing factors of our project and a frequent input into our processes are the enterprise environmental factors. This includes many things, such as organizational structure, culture, infrastructure, resources, market or industry conditions. In a previous section, we reviewed this one, so we won't go into further detail. Organizational process assets are also a big item and another thing we will frequently see as an input into our processes. These include things like company policies, procedures, informal and formal plans, templates, guidelines, historical information and lessons learned. For example, if you are getting ready to initiate a project that was similar to a previous project that the company managed, you would use the information from the previous project to aid you in your current project.; things like the work breakdown structure and lessons that were learned from that previous project in order to prevent making similar mistakes and manage your current project more efficiently, etcetera. Another influencing factor is the statement of work. This is the initial description of the work to be done or more accurately, the product, service or result to be completed by the project. It usually states the minimum scope of work and deliverables of the project, which are later clarified further. Another influencing factor that exists before entering into the initiating process group is the contract. This is self-explanatory. This document normally exists within the project that is being delivered to an external customer. There are some cases where a company that has complex or a large structure drafts contracts for internal projects. Nowadays, most of us use software to manage our projects, like Microsoft Project, for instance. This is considered to be a tool and a system. And an example of a project management information system, usually referred to by its acronym, PMI's, but there are other tools out there as well, some that are not done through technology but manually. Of course, these other systems are becoming less common. Once again, these are all items that exist even before a project kicks off and are therefore influencing factors into the project. The outputs of the initiating process group become inputs into the Planning Process Group. And the same between the planning and the executing process groups. Notice that our arrow connecting the executing process group and monitoring and controlling process group flows both ways. Let me give you an example of why this is the case. The executing process group provides outputs such as requested and implemented changes and corrective actions. Approved change requests are inputs into planning and the rejected changes are inputs into monitoring and controlling. We see a similar relationship between monitoring and controlling and the closing process group. This is because monitoring and controlling process group is not concerned with only that phase, but also in monitoring and controlling the entire project. So you may have a corrective action that affects the project management plan. The relationship amongst the process groups is much more intricate and as we previously established, it can repeat within sub-projects or project phases over the entire life of the project. So overall, information from each process group does feed into the other ones. And at the final closing of the project, we have two additional occurrences within our project flow. We have the final product delivered to the customer and our lessons learned and project information that is archived into the organizational process assets for later use. And that concludes our high-level overview of the project groups flow and interaction within a project.