Analyzing Project Activities Through 10 Knowledge Areas Of Project Management

Project Integration Management

The report is based on analysing the project activities into 10 knowledge areas of project management. For this paper, the project activities are taken on information system implementation. Larson, and Gray (2015) discussed that into the project life cycle, there are five process sets such as initiation, development, execution, monitoring and controlling plus finally closing process group. PMI is created set of guidelines for the project management which is defined as project management knowledge area. It is evolving standard which is being updated in PMBOK. Kerzner and Kerzner (2017) stated that the knowledge areas are taking place of the process groups.  There are ten knowledge areas into the project life cycle which are required for effective project management such as:  

• Integration management knowledge area
• Schedule management knowledge area
• Scope management knowledge area
• Communication management knowledge area
• Cost management knowledge area
• Quality management knowledge area
• Risk management knowledge area
• Procurement management knowledge area
• Stakeholder management knowledge area
• Human resource management knowledge area

Project integration management: The project activities involve in this knowledge area is development of project charter which is formed in beginning phase. It is a documents set the project and assign the project manager (Nicholas & Steyn, 2017). After created, there is approval of project plan by stakeholder, project sponsor and track the change log as the project progresses. This area is included with direct and manage the project plan and estimate the project deliverables.

Project scope management: The project activities are detailed requirement of final product and service, define the project scope and work breakdown structure (WBS). Validation of project scope is also done in this knowledge area to ensure that the deliverables are approved by stakeholder and sponsor (Crawford, 2014). Acceptance of project deliverables and monitor and control the process group is also under this area.

Project time management: The project activities are schedule the project plan with start date, and estimate the project budget for each task. It is involved with creating the project schedule, determine the resources for each task, making of WBS (Heagney, 2016). A Gantt chart is used to place the tasks on the project timeline and work on the resource levelling for balancing the usage of resources.

Project cost management: This area is involved with project budget, monitoring to retain the development stakeholders and sponsor learned (Hornstein, 2015). The project actions are establish of project budget, control the budget and estimation of cost for labour, materials and equipment’s.

Project quality management: The project activities are quality assurance, ensure about the quality standards, control of quality and inspect the project deliverables (Jeston,, 2014).

Project human resource management: The project activities are identification of roles and responsibilities, determination of job positions, and acquire the project team.   

Project Scope Management

Project communication management: The project activities are inform the team and stakeholders about the communication, therefore a communication plan is required which is included of delivery time, mode of communication and information (de Carvalho, Patah, & de Souza Bido, 2015). Change into the communication is required when issues are raised into the project. Management of the communications is done when there is execution of project to ensure it runs as planned.

Project risk management: The project activities are identification of risks, categorized as well as prioritized. It is involved with identification of risks occurred throughout the project execution (Todorovic et al., 2015). Perform of qualitative risk analysis besides quantitative risk analysis impact the development plan. Controlling as well as reviewing the risk register is also done in this knowledge area.

Project procurement management: The project activities in this knowledge area are hire the subcontractors, identify the impact on budget as well as schedule. Plan the procurement management is started with identification of project needs and involvement of the contractors (Eskerod & Jepsen, 2016). It is also included on statement of work, request for the project proposal and choosing the vendor.

Project stakeholder management: The project activities are identification of project stakeholders, list of each of the stakeholders, prioritize the concerns of the stakeholders and identify the impact on the project (Lock, 2017). It is also involved with management of the expectations of stakeholders, control of stakeholder engagement and satisfy the needs of the stakeholder expectations.  

Nicholas and Steyn (2017) discussed that the PM plan is such a documents which is formal, approved documents used to succeed the implementation of the project plan. The documents required for the project plan are defining, preparing, integrating as well as coordinating the planning activities. It is also defining the implementation of the project work, checking and monitoring in addition to finally closing the project plan. The project plan is required to plan the work as per scheduled project plan and then estimation of the cost for each of the development activities (Muller, 2017). As this project is based on implementation of information system, therefore the plan is based on it. Into the project management is based information systems are required to the project manager for support planning, reviewing, controlling, and reporting as well as decision making tasks. Fleming and Koppelman (2016) stated that basic function of project management information system was to provide the managers with required information based on parameters of cost time performance. Nature as well as role of the project management into the information system is such that the system automates the entire business operations of an organization.

Project Time Management

The timeline of this project is higher level view of the activities related to project with motivation on the milestones. The timeline is not exchanged requirement for the complete schedule besides it is emphasised with the key events like deliverables due date and decisions made (Verzuh, 2015). The below table will provide with higher level of the timeline, and summary level to meet with the project requirements. The project timeline for the project plan is:

Identifier	Task name	Resource name	Milestone	Duration	Dependent task
1.0	Initiation Phase	Project team	Yes	1 month	Confirmation of the project funding
2.0	Planning Phase	Project team	Yes	1 month	Amendment of the vendor contract
3.0	Implementation Phase	Project team	Yes	15 days	Completion of the planning phase
4.0	Closeout Phase	Project team	Yes	15 days	Completion of the implementation phase

The key deliverables of this project plan is:

Phase	Summary of the project phase	Key deliverables
Planning	Identification of project deliverables and project scope	Project implementation plan
Implementation	Training and production, upgrade of the information system	Testing plans are completed
Testing and validation	Upgrade, testing and resolve the issues	Training documentation tools are used
Training	Training on the information system	Deployment strategy
Deployment	Deployment of the system	Updated with the user documentation, application support plan

Quality management plan is used to certify that the development outputs, benefits as well as processes are to be delivered, consultation with the requirements of participants, and fitted with the project determination (Kerzner, 2018). The quality management is consisted of four components such as planning, quality assurance, and quality control along with continual improvements into the project work.   

Quality standard	Tracking tool and measure
PM plan approved besides followed	· Sign off the project management plan · Project status report
Certification for proceeding to following phase	Approval since the development certification
Documentation of venture hazards, mitigation and tracking	Risk management log
Documentation of project problems and effort to resolve	Issue log
Within the development budget	Project budget report
Verification plus validation	Periodic review and reply to the problems as well as development risks
Completion of project work on innovative development scope and approval of scope variations	Project management plan, scope management and modification control

Review type	Quality standard	Tools	Reviewer	Reports
Project requirements	The project requirements are shaped with contribution from the development team members, and steering committee	Project meetings in addition other project management software	Project team	Monthly
Project plans	The plans are being created with the input from the project team members	Ms project	Project team	Monthly
Project milestones	The milestones are meet by the date	Ms project	Project director	Monthly
Testing	There is verification of test results by the project team	Different software packages	Project team	Test plan and acceptance testing reports

Meredith et al., (2014) discussed that risk management is used to forecast as well as evaluate the possible and initial risks into a project plan so that it can be mitigated on time before it would affect the entire project plan. Therefore, identification of possible risks, its causes, probability, impact and mitigation strategies are listed in below table such as:

Description of the risk	Probability	Impact	Mitigation strategy
The project is at risk when the stakeholders are not engaged at starting of the project plan.	Low	High	There should be proper communication among the project stakeholders to ensure they understand the benefits of the project success.
The project is at risk when there are no availability of the implementation vendor.	Low	High	At the starting of the project plan, work with the project vendor as well as agreed on the project schedule.
There are lack of project funding for the purpose of cost containment.	Low	High	It is required to provide an effective services and ability of the services to generate of proper revenue recovery at the time of project completion.

Three of the above identified risks probability is low, but its impacts are high on entire business operations which effect the project completion time and budget at lot.

Nicholas and Steyn (2017) discussed that the procurement management plan is considered as part of the development management plan. The projects are some elements of procurement such as required to purchase of goods as well as amenities from external of the organization. The measures which are used to handle the procurement are included of activities like make-or-buy analysis, script of the project necessities, solicitation development, assessment as well as assortment, review, project reception, agreement closeout are also encompassed into it (Todorovic et al., 2015). The procurement management is followed the state purchasing process as well as protocol. The vendor will procure the execution of project contract against the price agreements.

The procurement documents describe how the items are to be obtained through the project work, method used to achieve the development vendors (de Carvalho, Patah, & de Souza Bido, 2015). Therefore, the process requirements are required to manage the procurement of identified project requirements such as:

• Initiation of the project request
• Development of the timing, and quality
• Approval of project request
• Purchasing of the authority
• Bid review
• Contract management responsibilities
• Contract closeout requirements
• Procurement processes flowcharts used

Therefore, those are the activities which are required to follow to finish the project work on time and procure of required resources as per project requirements.  

Project Cost Management

Conclusion:

It is concluded that the project management is agreed of the guidelines for the project work. It is evolving standard which is being updated into PMBOK. The ten knowledge areas of the project management are directed and managed the entire work so that all the project deliverables are properly produced. The knowledge areas are involved with the project scope that the work is being included into the project. As there are changes into the project scope, therefore it is required that boundaries of project is well defined and observed properly. It is easier for people to supplement of illegal work into the project when the development is appeared to sufficient for analysing, and the project are to be estimated into minimum cost.  The tasks are a few components of acquirement, for example, required to buy of merchandise and additionally benefits from outside of the association. The techniques which are utilized to deal with the project are incorporated of exercises like make-or-purchase examination, composing of the task prerequisites, requesting arranging, assessment and in addition determination, review, project acknowledgment, contract closeout are likewise comprised into the project management plan. The attainment administration is taken after the state obtaining process in addition also convention.

References:

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