I am quite new into “scientific project management”, and I am still struggling to understand the following 2 terms used by PMI:
*Project Plan
*Project Management Plan
Do they referring to the same thing or to 2 different things?
E.g. in the “Experience Verification Form” they refer to Project Plan : e.g.
<<
Obtain project plan approval from the customer and conduct a kick off meeting with all key stakeholders
>>
At the same time, PMBOK does not even have “Project Pan” in it’s glossary, they always operate the term “Project Management Plan”.
So, I must say, I am a bit lost.
Can someone shed some light on it?
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Darren KosaPlanning & Controls ContractorHampshire, United Kingdom
Hi Evgeny,
Depending on which firm you work for and what terminology they use, ‘Project Plan’ and ‘Project Management Plan’ will mean the same thing, a document or collection of documents that contain the why, what, how, when, how and how much for your project.
However, some firms use ‘Project Plan’ to refer to the ‘Project Delivery Schedule’ (usually a GANTT chart) so this can sometimes get confusing.
It’s best if you get clarification from someone who has previously managed projects for the company, (they’ll be easy to spot, bags under their eyes and a nervous twitch) or consult the process library / management system and see the definition that they use.
It’s one of those grey areas you sometimes get in project management that’s open to interpretation. Saving Changes...
Rob MartinConsulting (Contract)| Microsoft (Thailand)Lam Luk Ka, Pathum Thani, Thailand
There are many variants on this theme.
A Project Plan or Project Management Plan can be quite different from the Project Schedule.
I like to keep them quite separate to emphasise what each document focuses on.
Rob Saving Changes...
George JucanManaging Partner| Organizational Perfomance Enablers NetworkWoodbridge, Ontario, Canada
The "Project Plan" reference was a cleanup issue in PMBOK 3rd Edition, which standardized the term "Project Management Plan" - one of the reasons being the misuse of the "project plan" term as mentioned by Darren (to really indicate a project schedule). We did additional cleanup in upcoming PMBOK 4th Edition so the terms should be consistent in next version. Consistency work was also performed across all standards in progress, so PMI is getting better at avoiding such confusions. Saving Changes...
Project Plan (PP) and Project Management Plan (PMP) refer to the same concept of Project Plan. Every company has their our terminology for this concept. So check with your company's PMO site/office for avoiding confusions. Saving Changes...
Josh NankivelEngineering Project Manager| AppleSioux Falls, Sd, United States
As the others have said, there is a lot of variation.
I like this concept:
PMP (Project Management Plan) - This is a logical entity made up of seperate management plans, including but not limited to the PMBOK knowledge areas. These speak to how, not what. For instance, how you will manage scope, not what the scope actually is. I like to keep the management plans separate in order to better track changes to them, but on smaller projects these could all be in one document.
Work Plan (or Project Plan)- This takes the objectives from a charter and/or scope statement and breaks them down into high-level deliverables. Also speaks to general approaches to the work. For example you could identify the technologies that will be used, deadlines you already know about, etc.
WBS & WBS Dictionary - Start with the Work Plan and then decompose the deliverables down into sub-deliverables and/or work packages, etc.
Schedule - WBS work packages with dependencies and milestones identified, resource loaded, etc.
You could start at the top and work your way down, but a lot of it is going to be iterative too. You may finish decomposing your WBS and find out there are deliverables you need to add, or objectives you need to negotiate, etc. Maintain traceability throughout, so if something changes at any time you can easily locate dependencies in these documents and make the appropriate updates.
I may be totally wrong, but, I must say, the more I read about it, the more I get feeling, that there is no fixed opinion about what is a Project Management Pan.
For instance in the previous post, Josh Nankivel has written that PMP "speak to how, not what ", and that makes a lot of sense, because there are other documents, which describe “what. (e.g. project schedule, WBS etc)
