About Project Management

Enterprise Environmental Factors

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What are Enterprise Environmental Factors?

Enterprise Environmental Factors are used as inputs to project activities same as Organizational Process Assets. These factors are not under the control of the project team, in spite of being influential towards project direction. This influential factor may negatively or positively impact towards the project success, hence it’s project team’s responsibility to use them under all the project processes to ensure that project is guided and followed under the respective factors accordingly.

PMBOK 5th edition has stated different factors that are used in project activities. Few of them are as follows;

  • Culture, structure and the governing rules of the performing organization
  • External factors such as political and marketing conditions
  • Geographical situation, resources and available facilities
  • Industry / government standards and policies
  • Available human resources (skills, knowledge level, etc…)
  • Company working structure (authorization structure)
  • Stakeholder engagement (risk tolerance, culture and other behavioral patterns)
  • Available communication channels and management methodologies
  • Information databases (commercial, risk related, baselines, etc…)
  • Personnel authority and administration (staffing plans, employee retention methods, performance appraisals and reviews)
  • Project Management Information System (an automated tool to collect and share information related to projects)
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About Project Management

Organizational Process Assets

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What are Organizational Process Assets?

According to PMBOK (5th Edition), Organizational Process Assets (OPA) are plans, processes, procedures and knowledge bases specific to a particular organization. Any artifact (formal or informal plans), practice (processes, policies, procedures), any knowledge base (lessons learned, historical information) from any stakeholder group can be included as an organizational process asset to govern or drive projects. Among the project knowledge areas, these process assets are considered as inputs to project activities and they are updated throughout the project life cycle whenever needed and necessary.

The organizational process assets are separated under 2 categories.

  • Processes and Procedures
  • Corporate Knowledge Base

Under processes and procedures, the organizational process assets are categorized as follows.

Initiation and Planning Executing, Monitoring and Controlling Closing
1. Guidelines and specific criteria for a given project
2. Standards and Policies (HR
Policies, health and safety,
quality policies, etc…)
3. Procedures (Process audits,
checklists, KPIs, etc…)
4. Templates (WBS, Risk register, contract templates, etc…)		 1. Change control procedures
2. Financial documents
3. Quality, issues and defects related
procedures
4. Communication related documents		 1. Project closure reports
2. Project closure guidelines
3. Lessons learned documents

 

Corporate Knowledge Base consists of organizational process assets which includes various types of information related to projects that can be used for any project activity. Few of them are as follows; (Source: PMBOK 5th Edition)

  1. Financial related databases (costing, budgeting, profits, cost overruns, hourly rates, labor hours / rates, etc…)
  2. Quality related databases (detected defects, controlling / limiting information, defect status, action item list, etc…)
  3. Configuration management related info: (baselines, policies, procedures, standards, etc…)
  4. Lessons learned and historical knowledge base (previous project records, project documents, contract documents, project performance related information, other knowledge areas related documents such as risk management, stakeholder management, communication management, etc…)
  5. Project files (Scope, schedule, cost baselines, network diagrams, risk registers, change management processes, risk response strategies, etc…)
  6. Process measurement related knowledge database

 

 

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About Project Management

What is a ‘Project’

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What is a ‘Project’ in Project Management?

A ‘Project’ is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. (PMBOK 5th Edition) The term ‘temporary endeavor’ defines that a project has a definite start and end. The project end is achieved once the project objectives are achieved or being terminated due to the impossibility of achieving the said / stated objectives. It also can be terminated if the client / customer wishes to stop. The term ‘temporary’ doesn’t mean that the duration of the project is short, instead, it refers to the longevity of the project.

Each project has to create a unique product, service or a result and the output of a project either can be tangible or intangible. If this is further elaborated,

  • A product can be defined as a component of another item, an upgrade or an enhancement to an item or a new product itself
  • A service or a capability to perform a particular service (E.g.: A new business function)
  • A result such as an outcome or document (A research result)

There are few strategic considerations that lead to authorize the execution of a particular project. Those factors are;

  1. Market demand
  2. Strategic opportunity
  3. Social need
  4. Environmental consideration
  5. Customer request
  6. Technological advancement
  7. Legal requirement

Strategic Consideration

 

Since the need for a project arises due to one of the above factors, hence project management is a necessary skill which every organization requires in order to survive in this competitive industry.

 

 

 

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About Project Management

What is Project Management

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What Is ‘Project Management?’

‘Project Management’ is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques into project activities to meet the requirements identified by a particular project. (PMBOK 5th Edition) There are 47 processes which are grouped under 5 main categories. They are:

  • Initiating
  • Planning
  • Executing
  • Monitoring and Controlling
  • Closing

No matter what the industry a particular project needs to be built is, these 5 processes need to be executed in order to complete the project successfully.

There are few constraints that need to be managed in order to drive a project towards its success. They are:

  • Scope of the project
  • Schedule of the project
  • Cost of the project
  • Quality of the project

In addition to the above main 4 factors, there are 2 other factors that also need attention. They are:

  • Risks of the project
  • Available resources of the project

The main 4 constraints have been identified as the ‘Iron Triangle’ of a project since they are mandatory / essential factors that need to be maintained under their respective limits in order to measure the success of the project.

 

 

Each of these factors are linked with each other. Therefore, if one of them is changed, it will affect towards the other factors. Hence, it’s necessary to keep the track of each factor to maintain the project under the agreed values.

E.g.: If the client comes up with a change to the scope, the project team will require more time to do the new change which will add a cost to the project.

Due to the higher probability of changes in the project requirements, development of the project management plan has become a progressively elaborated process which proceeds throughout the entire project life-cycle. This ‘progressive elaboration’ helps the project team to define project activities into much more detailed requirements as the project evolves.

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