5th Edition PMBOK® Guide—Chapter 4: What plans go into the Project Management Plan?

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Jerome Rowley

1. Project Management Plan components

There are three categories of plans that make up the overall Project Management Plan.

Category

Description
1.. Performance Measurement Baseline This consists of the following three baselines:

  • Scope baseline (= project scope statement + WBS + WBS dictionary)
  • Schedule baseline
  • Cost baseline
2.. Knowledge area management plans These consist of plans from the 8 knowledge areas other than Integration

  • Scope Management Plan
  • Schedule Management Plan
  • Cost Management Plan
  • Quality Management Plan
  • Human Resource Plan
  • Communications Management Plan
  • Risk Management Plan
  • Procurements Management Plan
  • Stakeholder Management Plan
3. Additional management plans These are additional management plans such as

  • Requirements management plan (scope)
  • Change management plan (integration)
  • Configuration management plan (integration)
  • Process improvement plan (quality)

2. Additional management plans—additional explanation

It is fairly obvious that the nine management plans listed under item 2 above come from the various knowledge areas listed. However, I feel a little more detail should be in order for those 4 additional management plans listed under item 3.

Management Plan

Explanation
1. Change management plan This outlines the change control process:

  • who can approve, including the creation of a change control board if necessary
  • how approved changes will be managed and controlled
2. Configuration management plan As opposed to changes in the project, the configuration controls changes to the functional and physical characteristics of the product, and documents those changes.
3. Requirements management plan This links the various requirements to

  • the overall project objectives (sometimes through a requirements traceability index)
  • the source of each requirement (which stakeholder)
  • who is assigned to manage the requirement
4. Process improvement plan Improving processes used on the project during the course of the project by analyzing them in order to identify those activities that enhance value.

Although they are not explicitly linked to knowledge areas in the PMBOK® Guide, it should be fairly obvious that these four subsidiary management plans are linked to the knowledge areas in the following way

Management Plan

Related Knowledge Area
1. Change management plan The change management plan is linked to the process of change control, which falls under the Integration knowledge area. Change management tells you how the change is to evaluated, decided upon, and implemented (if approved).
2. Configuration management plan The configuration plan is linked to the process of change control, which falls under the Integration knowledge area. Configuration management tells you what version of the product or project plans you are dealing with.
3. Requirements management plan This is linked to scope management plan, in that the scope of the project, or the general characteristics of the product of the project as agreed upon by the customer, are then analyzed into technical requirements which then are then the focus of the deliverables of the project. Therefore requirements management is related to the Scope knowledge area.
4. Process improvement plan Improving a process is related to quality assurance, which therefore means that process improvement is related to the Quality knowledge area.

ALL of these elements combined to form the Project Management Plan, which really is a collection of all the other plans combined in one overall plan to be referred to during the Executing and Monitoring & Controlling process groups.

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