Knowledge Areas and Processes: A Seamless Interdependency

Suvrutt is a seasoned information technology and industrial automation professional, with 30+ years of experience in information technology and industrial electronics

  Career Development   New Practitioners   Using PMI Standards   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)  

This article looks at the seamless interdependency of project management knowledge areas and processes. Almost everything in project management—and in most other parts of life—has to have four components for a successful outcome:

1. Competent, healthy and qualified inputs
2. A well-defined process that systematically works on the inputs
3. An output that matches the expectations finalized beforehand
4. Any process needs to take inputs from other processes and should give output(s) to other processes for a mutually beneficial coexistence

A train needs electrical or diesel power to travel. In turn, it may be carrying power-generating equipment from a manufacturing plant to a new electrical power generation plant. The 47 processes of the 10 project management knowledge areas mentioned in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) are no different. A project management professional (PMP^®) needs to view these processes as an interwoven series of activities, just the way a musical symphony is built with several melodious notes.

This article is comprised of the following sub-sections:

• Interdependency of project management knowledge areas and processes, with two examples
• Outputs to inputs: How outputs of the project charter and …

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