Para todos los efectos derivados del presente Convenio, señala como domicilio legal el ubicado en avenida Hidalgo número 604, colonia Centro, código postal 98000, ciudad de Zacatecas, Zacatecas

KAs represent a set of competency skills and processes that must be properly uti- lized by the PM throughout the life cycle. The guide outlines 10 KAs: scope, time, cost, quality, HRs, communications, risk, procurement, stakeholders, and integration. These skill and process-based items interact throughout the five life-cycle domain groups of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. Basic roles for specifics within each of the KAs will be summarized below; however, much of their detailed content will appear in various formats throughout the book. The goal at this point is to briefly introduce them as key components of the life cycle model. These represent fundamental vocabulary concepts and are important ideas in the overall management framework. An expanded summary of the model KAs fol- lows in the sections below.

3.3.2.1 Scope Management In its simplest form, scope management involves the work efforts required to ensure that all defined requirements are properly produced based on the developed requirements statement. High-level work definition is decomposed into a lower-level work breakdown view. During the detailed planning phase, this activity

Project Management Body of Knowledge • 29

involves translation of a formal statement of requirements, while later activities deal with control of the requirements change process and verification that the ongoing results will meet customer expectations. The primary scope output for the planning cycle is a work breakdown structure (WBS) that provides subsequent guidance for vari- ous follow-up project activities.

3.3.2.2 Time Management This process deals with the mechanics and management requirements for translating the defined scope into work unit activities and then moni- toring those activities to ensure “on-time” completion. The guide defines seven pro- cesses in this area: plan schedule management, define activities, sequence activities, estimate activity resources, estimate activity durations, develop schedule, and control schedule (PMI, 2013, p. 143).

The define activities process translates the identified scope requirements deliverables into a set of work activities required to complete the deliverables. The sequence activities process involves linking the work activities into a network plan structure. Step three in the time management planning process involves estimating resource requirements for the defined activities, which in turn leads to a resource allocation process and an activ- ity duration estimate. Once the various work units have been translated into duration estimates, they can be sequenced together to create an initial project plan. The reason for illustrating the guide processes here is to show that they are designed to provide guid- ance in the development of required project management activities.

In concert with the time planning activities, the project team will evaluate each of the other KAs to produce a final schedule for presentation to management. During the execution phase, a schedule control process monitors the ongoing status and guides the PM through appropriate corrective action.

3.3.2.3 Cost Management This KA includes various activities and processes that guide the budget creation process, then establish a control function to guide the proj- ect through the execution process. The PMBOK® _{Guide defines four cost processes}

related to this KA: estimate costs, determine budget, and control costs (PMI, 2013, p. 193). Basically, the process of generating a project budget involves estimates of HRs (quantity and skills) and material costs for each defined work unit. The values that are determined from this process help the project team develop a cost budget which includes not only the direct work cost estimates but also various other cost compo- nents needed to support the overall project activity. Cost budgeting organizes the values and estimates from the various sources and produces a cost baseline that is used to measure project performance. Cost control deals with monitoring costs and understanding observed variances that occur as the project processes. A second part of the control process is to create a management process to handle cost changes, inap- propriate charges, and cost overruns. More details on the mechanics of this process will be described in Part 3 of the book.

3.3.2.4 Quality Management This KA focuses on all aspects of both the product and project quality processes. The three model defined processes are: plan quality, perform quality assurance, and perform quality control (PMI, 2013, p. 230). The quality plan- ning process is designed to focus the team on organizational or industry-related qual- ity standards to be achieved for the project deliverables. Once the appropriate quality standards have been established and documented in the quality management plan, the

remaining two processes focus on the appropriate activities needed to operationally sat- isfy the respective quality goals. The quality assurance process reviews the state of the project from its ability to deliver the required result, while the quality control process covers the tactical procedures to measure quality of the output.

3.3.2.5 HRs Management This KA focuses on actions related to the human ele- ment of the project. These activities consist of four operational processes: plan human resources, acquire project team, develop project team, and manage project team (PMI, 2013, p. 255). These activities include a staffing management plan that outlines how the resources will be managed throughout the life cycle. Staff acquisition is based on this plan. In a matrix-type project organization, project resources are typically not dedi- cated to one particular project, but are leveraged across multiple projects and sourced from various departments in the organization. This complicates the resource alloca- tion mechanics for the PM and makes the acquisition step more complex than one might anticipate. Once a project is underway, the process of team development starts and continues through the life cycle. This includes both individual and team training with the ultimate goal being to improve the overall skill of the team members even after the project is completed.

3.3.2.6 Communications Management Communication problems are now recognized as one of the most causal reasons for project failure. Project communications manage- ment activities are designed to support the information needs of the various project stakeholders. The three model communication processes are: plan communications management, manage communications, and control communications (PMI, 2013, p. 288). One of the key aspects involved in these processes is to identify who the targets are for communications, then explicitly plan how communications will flow during project execution. The latest version of the guide has expanded focus in this area to balance recognized deficiencies in most projects.

3.3.2.7 Risk Management Many regard the current techniques for defining project risk as immature. Nevertheless, failure to deal with this aspect of the effort can be catastrophic to the final result. The primary focus of project risk management is to minimize the probability of negative events hurting the outcome and maximizing any opportunities that exist for positive events. The management of this class of activity is very difficult in that a risk event will not have yet occurred during the planning cycle, but if does occur later, the earlier plan will be potentially affected. Identification of such events is a complex undertaking and represents a critical success factor for the PM in that he can do an excellent job of managing the defined effort only to find that some unspecified event, internal or external to the project, wipes out the entire value of the effort. It is important for project teams to understand risks areas of vulner- ability and have plans in place to deal with them. Risk management involves some of the most complex project management tasks which will be discussed in greater detail later in Chapter 20.

3.3.2.8 Procurement Management There are many situations that lead the project team to decide to procure material or HRs from third parties. The procurement management processes are utilized to manage the acquisition of these items. These are defined in

Project Management Body of Knowledge • 31

the guide model as: plan procurement management, conduct procurements, and close procurements (PMI, 2013, p. 355). This area of project management has historically been considered very mature, but in recent years, the increase in outsourcing has made this a troublesome area for the PM as his project resources have become scattered in other organizations and across wide geographic areas. The procurement planning process lays the policy groundwork to guide how project resource needs will be externally acquired and the remaining activities in this area are involved in selecting vendors and enter- ing into contractual or formal relationships for the supply of goods or services. Upon completion of the project, the procurement closure process reviews performance of the contract and resolves any remaining issues.

3.3.2.9 Stakeholder Management This KA represents the latest addition to the model and is a result of what some term “success/failure.” What this means is that a project can finish according to defined requirements and be judged a success, only to be judged later as a failure in the light of unrecognized stakeholder expectations. The focus of this area is to do a better job of identifying relevant stakeholders and keeping them in the communications channel throughout the life cycle. Chapter 17 will elaborate on these processes in greater detail.

3.3.2.10 Integration Management The guide describes Integration Management as the first KA; however, it is hard to explain this process until one has a better understand- ing of the other nine KA processes that need to be integrated into a working and viable whole. The guide defines this role by saying that it “…includes the processes and activi- ties needed to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the Project Management Process Groups” (PMI, 2013, p. 63). There are many examples that can be offered to illustrate this activity, but one should suffice for basic illustration now. Let us assume that a major change request representing a change in scope has been approved for the project. From this, it would seem reasonable to suggest that this scope management event might well bring with it changes in schedule (time) and cost. Also, related to this could be changes in staffing or procurement or risk and so on. The key idea of process integration is that changes in one KA process often spawn changes in others. From a high-level viewpoint, project management is integration management.

3.3.2.11 Overall Process View As we have seen in the discussion above, each KA has multiple subordinate processes—47 in all. Some of these processes are linked directly to inputs or outputs from other KAs in various segments of the life cycle, while yet others are invoked somewhat randomly at various times as necessary. As an example of linked processes, scope definition items lead to time results, which in turn lead to cost param- eters. Other process linkages such as communication are not as deterministic as to life cycle points. Previous editions of the guide recognized this two-type process view, but the more recent versions dropped that designation. Regardless, it is still a good way to understand how the various items work in the overall scheme.

Figure 3.2 shows a physical distribution of the 47 processes across the major life cycle process domain groups. In this view, note that each KA is uniquely numerically coded to better show how the various management processes are distributed across the project life cycle. Also, each process group is segmented into either a core or a

supporting role even though the guide does not specifically distinguish them this way. The core tasks are essentially performed in a somewhat defined order and are generally required activities for each project, while the supporting activities are more dependent upon the nature of the project and they may be performed in any order, iteratively, or even minimally in some cases. The process box numbers reflect the

PMBOK® _{Guide KA chapter number and reference number sequence. For example,}

the 5.4 Create WBS process would be described in the guide Chapter 5 as the fourth reference process.

A more detailed technical discussion related to the process groups and KAs described above can be found in the PMBOK® _{Guide. Embedded in each of the guide’s}

KAs lower level, 47 process descriptions are summaries and descriptions of the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs that drive each process. Recognize that the guide document provides a good high-level roadmap for project management and it repre- sents an internationally accepted standard. However, it is not designed to be a project management cook book. Rather it is a general knowledge base to provide guidance from which a specific project model can be constructed. Experience and training are required to turn this standard model view into workable project management tools and processes.