Planning Process Group

The purpose of the Planning Process Group is to elaborate the information from the project charter to create a comprehensive set of plans that will enable the project team to deliver the project objectives. There are 24 processes in the Planning Process Group.

• Develop project management plan
• Plan scope management
• Collect requirements
• Define scope
• Create work breakdown structure (WBS)
• Plan schedule management
• Define activities
• Sequence activities
• Estimate activity durations
• Develop schedule
• Plan cost management
• Estimate costs
• Determine budget
• Plan quality management
• Plan resource management
• Estimate activity resources
• Plan communications management
• Plan risk management
• Identify risks
• Perform qualitative analysis
• Perform quantitative analysis
• Plan risk responses
• Plan procurement management
• Plan stakeholder management

The intent of the Planning Process Group is in order these tasks:

1. Determine develoment approach, life cycle and how you will plan for each knowledge area
2. Define and prioritize requirements
3. Create project scope statement
4. Assess what to purchase and create procurement documents
5. Determine planning team
6. Create WBS and WBS Dictionary
7. Create activity list
8. Create network diagram
9. Estimate resource requirements
10. Estimate activity durations and costs
11. Determine critical path
12. Develop schedule
13. Develop budget
14. Determine quality standards, processes and metrics
15. Determine team charter and all roles and responsibilities
16. Plan communications and stakeholder engagement
17. Perform risk identification, qualitative and quantitative risk analysis and risk respone planning
18. Go back - interations
19. Finalize procurement strategy and documents
20. Create change and configuration management plans
21. Finalize all management plans
22. Develop realistic and cufficient project management plan and baseline
23. Gain formal approval of the plan
24. Hold kickoff meeting
25. Request changes

Planning is not a one-time event. It occurs throughout the project. Initial plans will become more detailed as additional information about the project becomes available. Additionally, as changes are approved for the project or product, many of the planning processes will need to be revisited and the documents revised and updated.

Many of the forms in this section provide information needed for other forms. The form description indi- cates from where information is received and to where it goes.

The forms used to document planning information include:

• Project management plan
• Change management plan
• Project roadmap
• Scope management plan
• Requirements management plan
• Requirements documentation
• Requirements traceability matrix
• Project scope statement
• Assumption log
• Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• Work breakdown structure dictionary
• Schedule management plan
• Activity list
• Activity attributes
• Milestone list
• Network diagram
• Duration estimates
• Duration estimating worksheet
• Project schedule
• Cost management plan
• Cost estimates
• Cost estimating worksheet
• Bottom-up cost estimating worksheet
• Cost baseline
• Quality management plan
• Quality metrics
• Responsibility assignment matrix
• Roles and responsibilities
• Resource management plan
• Team charter
• Resource requirements
• Resource breakdown structure
• Communications management plan
• Risk management plan
• Risk register
• Risk report
• Probability and impact assessment
• Probability and impact matrix
• Risk data sheet
• Procurement management plan
• Procurement strategy
• Source selection criteria
• Procurement strategy
• Stakeholder engagement plan

Some forms in this section are not explicitly described in the PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition, but they are useful in planning and managing a project. Use the forms here as a starting point for your project. You should tailor the forms to meet the needs of your project by editing, combining, or revising them.