Project Management Body of Knowledge

Introduction and overview of the project management book of knowledge

This wiki article will be about one of the central standards within the field of portfolio, program and project management. The standard is project management book of knowledge (PMBOK) published by the project management institute (PMI). This article will briefly present the background for PMBOK and cover the history of the standard as well as the development over the years since it first was published in 1996. The article will shortly summarize the five process groups and the ten main areas of the standard. The five standard process groups are initiating, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing, can be explained as following; an initiating phase where the initial inquiries are made and established. Then the planning phase where most of the ground work for the project is completed. An execution phase where the actual work is done, “the building is being build”, and during that phase there is also the monitoring and controlling, which is “how are we making sure we stay within the expected budget/time schedule”. In the end of the project is being closed and finalized. The standard says that these five process can be found in all projects and is used to explain the ten main areas. The ten main areas are; Project Integration Management, Project Scope Management, Project Time Management, Project Cost Management, Project Quality Management, Project Human Resource Management, Project Communications Management, Project Risk Management, Project Procurement Management, and Project Stakeholders Management. The main areas each describe one important aspect of project management, in the article each main area will be explained, and general overview of the tools to deal with the various main areas will be discussed. Afterwards the PMBOK will be compared to the PRINCE standard and areas where the two standards differentiates will be discussed and reflected upon. In the end of the article the strength and weaknesses will be discussed, and a section of how to use and implement the standard in to the real world will finish the article.