Planning Process Group
The project management team uses the Planning Process Group and its constituent processes and interactions to plan and manage a successful project for the organization. The Planning Process Group helps gather information from many sources with each having varymg levels of completeness and confidence. The planning processes develop the project management plan. These processes also identify, define, and mature the project scope, project cost, and schedule the project activities that occur within the project. As new project information is discovered, additional dependencies, requirements, risks, opportunities, assumptions, and constraints will be identified or resolved. The multi-dimensional nature of project management causes repeated feedback loops for additional analysis. As more project information or characteristics are gathered and understood, follow-on actions may be required. Significant changes occurring throughout the project life cycle trigger a need to revisit one or more of the planning processes and, possibly, some of the initiating processes.
The frequency of iterating the planning processes is also affected. For example, the project management plan, developed as an output of the Planning Process Group, will have an emphasis on exploring all aspects of the scope, technology, risks, and costs. Updates arising from approved changes during project execution may significantly impact parts of the project management plan. Project management plan updates provide greater precision with respect to schedule, costs, and resource requirements to meet the defined project scope as a whole. Updates can be limited to the activities and issues associated with the execution of a specific phase. Tins progressive detailing of the project management plan is often called "rolling wave planning," indicating that planning is an iterative and ongoing process.
While planning the project, the project team should involve all appropriate stakeholders, dependmg upon then influence on the project and its outcomes. The project team should use stakeholders in project planning since the stakeholders have skills and knowledge that can be leveraged in developing the project management plan and any subsidiary plans. The project team must create an environment in which stakeholders can contribute appropriately.
Since the feedback and refinement process cannot continue indefinitely, procedures set by the organization identify when the planning effort ends. These procedures will be affected by the nature of the project, the established project boundaries, appropriate monitoring and controlling activities, as well as the environment in which the project will be performed.
Other interactions among the processes within the Planning Process Group are dependent on the nature of the project. For example, on some projects there will be little or no identifiable risk until after most of the planning has been done. At that time, the team might recognize that the cost and schedule targets are overly aggressive, thus involving considerably more risk than previously understood. The results of the iterations are documented as updates to the project management plan.