Out of the 5 eBooks that we have published to date, this one is closer to my heart.
In this eBook we cover a few major topics that are often lost by project management professionals (PMP) and those who study the PMBOK® Guide.
The PMBOK® Guide only briefly mention the project life cycle but put a great deal of emphasis on knowledge areas, process groups and processes.
The main focus of this eBook is how to map these topics ACROSS the project life cycle? In prior articles, we discussed mapping the process groups to the project life cycle but today we focus on some of the knowledge areas.
PMBOK® Guide
The PMBOK has the 5 process groups and 10 knowledge areas (project management functions); a project life cycle has phases and stages – so how do we bridge them? In the guide, each project management function (knowledge area) is covered in one chapter. The chapters address the processes for these functions with their input, tools & techniques, and outputs. Now the chapter do not emphasize (enough) that these processes repeat in every project phase. As a result, some practitioners think they only occur on the project once whereas in reality they occur with every phase.
The eBook
This eBook is the 3rd in a 4-part series on a project management methodology, The Customizable and Adaptable Methodology for Managing Projects™ (CAM2P™). Each of the eBook emphasized different topics; this one focus was on addressing how some of the project management functions (knowledge areas) relate to the life cycle.
The Various Topics
For example, is approval of the project a one time deal? What we mean here is approval to work on the project and approving a budget?
How about estimating, the PMBOK mention estimating and estimating techniques but does not clearly say whether a project will have one estimate or more.
The same question for control. What do we control against? I know – some will say we control against the plan, but is there one plan or more? If more than one plan then we control against which plan?
Moving on to risk management, when do we perform a risk assessment? Some will say during planning. Great but is there one plan on the project?
We close this eBook with a discussion of project success and project stakeholders. We covered project stakeholders as a topic before the PMBOK 5th edition :).
In regard to project success, we have a few documents and a presentation on our knowledge portal on the SUKAD Four Dimensions of Project Success; also a dedicated section on our SUKAD Way site.
Closing Remarks
I know that we did not provide the answers for some of these questions here, to do so it would be re-writing the book 🙂 but you have access to the eBook and you can download for free. Just click on the book cover image above and you have it!
SUKAD has developed a basic application for the CAM2P Model. This application includes: MS Project Template, brief explanation of each phase, stage, deliverable, and stage gate, MS Word templates for all stage deliverables and stage gates, even a mind map template. All of these are available on the SUKAD website for a special introductory offer of $50 instead of $100.