Project management is an integrative effort. Decisions and actions taken in one knowledge area at a certain time usually affect other knowledge areas. Managing these interactions requires making trade-offs among the project's scope, time, and cost. A project manager may also need to make trade-offs between other knowledge areas, for example between risk and human resources. Therefore, we should view project management as a number of related processes.
A process is a series of actions directed toward a particular result. Project management process groups' progress from initiation activities to planning activities, executing activities, monitoring and controlling activities, and closing activities. Initiating processes including defining and authorizing a project or project phase. To initiate a project or the concept phase of a project, someone must define the business need for the project., someone must sponsor the project, and someone must take on the role of project manager. Initiating processes take place during each phase of a project.
Planning processes include devising and maintaining a workable scheme to ensure that the project addresses the organization's needs. There is normally no single project plan. Typically, there are several project plans, for example, the scope management plan, procurement management plan, schedule management plan, cost management plan, and so on. Each plan defines each knowledge area as it relates to the software development project at that point in time. For example, a software development project team must develop a plan to define the work that needs to be done for the project, to schedule activities that related t ...