10 Project Management Knowledge Areas

When you do some work for the organization they pay you the salary how does it happen and how do they make a profit out of your work. This is an interesting topic as well as a topic everyone must know to get motivated and inspired by your work and your team’s work. You need to think about the key areas that go into executing a project. Have you been curious about what are the areas required to handle complex projects at work?

This is, of course, the work of the project manager but if you aspire to become a PM then you must learn these topics. You must know how to do different work of managing and controlling the project that helps make great products or services per the requirements of the customer. The project manager must manage various portfolios and areas of the projects that he is entrusted upon. 

The project management knowledge areas are the 10 areas for effectively and efficiently managing the projects recommended by PMI in the PMBOK that is for the PMP certification. 

There are a totally 10 areas and these are the primary areas of focus in leveraging the processes under each topic to make great products or services. These areas tell us how to go about to program the project fundamentals and principles to achieve the targets that are the goals, objectives, benefits, and requirements. To learn more about the key knowledge areas do the project management professional certification.

The PMBOK 10 knowledge areas of project management are explained in detail in this article.

1. Scope  - This is the first step and starts with the development of a project charter and planning. The scope by definition is the boundaries of the project concerning the customer requirements namely functional requirements, features of the products or services, the timelines and quality, etc. The scope is one of the triple constraints of managing and must be controlled. Otherwise it may produce goods or services which are out of scope and may be rejected by the customer. Any changes to the scope will impact the quality, cost, and timelines.

2. Procurement - Upon approval from the project owner the PM procures the asset, equipment, software, and computers required for the project. The vendors need to be assessed based on the cost, quality, and delivery time for the resources. At the end of the project closure, the resources are released from the project for other projects.  

3. Integration  - The project during the execution is divided into various small activities and the activities are divided into other smaller tasks. This is one of the areas where the tasks, activities are integrated into large and complex deliverables. For example, if you are developing a software or an application then their activities such as build, code, deploy, testing, and prod these forms 3 main areas such as development, testing, and production. These are done by a different team of people and must be integrated to form large products or services in the end.

4. Risk - Risk is nothing but the uncertainty in the projects. The risk log is where the risks of projects are identified and the risk register is the place where the risks are assessed, treated, and monitored. There are 6 ways to treat risks they are Avoid, Accept, Mitigate, Transfer, Share, and Prepare for the business continuity. PMP recommends the use of the risk register to identify, assess, treat, communicate, and report risks in the projects. The residual risks must be managed and communicated by the project manager, this is the risk leftover after the risks are treated.

5. Stakeholder - Nowadays the PM is entrusted with the additional responsibility to engage with the various stakeholders including the customer. Customer engagement is the key thing with having weekly calls to the customer about updating the progress and get direction from the customer on his project. The project manager must ensure that key stakeholders are informed about the project progress, changes, issues, and another deviation from the scope, cost, and timelines. The stakeholders consist of the project sponsor, project teams, top management, and customer.

6. Resource  - Assets such as equipment, computer, software, machinery, and people can be managed by critical chain management tools, PERT, and other tools such as the Gantt chart. We need to allocate the key asset to all the tasks and activities of the project and also have buffer in case it is needed at any time during the execution. Managing resources includes the motivation, collaboration, and teamwork of all the stakeholders and the project teams. The PM must have to engage with all the key resources in the team and allocate tasks and activities.

7. Schedule - Time or the schedule can be managed by various tools such as PERT, CPM, and Gantt charts. Time is one of the triple constraints along with scope and cost. Any change to time will negatively impact the other two. The PERT tool help in managing the times with the help of buffers such as project buffer, resource buffer, and feeding buffers. These can be managed by calculating the expected time from the formula using optimistic time, pessimistic time, and most likely time. The schedule can be better visualized in the Gantt chart. The schedule shows the start time and finishes time for the project completion and all the activities.

Also Read: Gantt Chart vs PERT Chart

8. Quality - If any 3 constraints such as cost, time, and scope are impacted then it will have a direct impact on the quality of the product. The quality of the product depends on the assurance given to the customer in the initiation phase. The project manager must ensure that all the features and functionality are available as described by the customer to maintain quality. There are various tools such as Design for Six Sigma and six sigma methodologies to control the products or services of the project. Achieving six sigma ensures that there are no defects for 99.9966% of the time that is there are only 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). The project manager must be well trained in these methodologies to produce a quality product. To learn the various tools enroll in PMP training with StarAgile.

9. Communications - This is the key area in the management. Everyone involved in projects must have communication of the project's status, progress, issues, changes, and the direction. The PM is the key resource responsible for the communication within the project teams, project sponsor, top management, and the customer. The team is lead by the team leader who under the direction of the project manager informs and communicates with the team about the project status and each individual's responsibilities. Some of the document that is used for communication is the project charter, project plan; changelog, issue log and risk register, etc.

10. Cost - Cost is one of the triple constraints along with scope and time any changes to the cost will impact the other variables. There are different types of costs such as operations cost, cost of the assets and cost of resources, etc. It is necessary to manage the cost within the budget so that the benefits of the work reach the project sponsor or the organization. The credibility and effectiveness of the organization are impacted if the cost is not managed properly. Managing costs will determine the benefits of the project realization. The PM must be good at managing and controlling these constraints. To know more about the cost management do the PMP certification online.

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Also Read : Project Management Knowledge Areas

How can a PM master pmbok knowledge areas

It is necessary that the project manager master the skills of project management by mastering these 10 PMP knowledge areas. This can be done by having training in the PMP course at StarAgile. StarAgile is a partner firm for the PMI to conduct PMP online training. To register for the PMP online training visit StarAgile’s website. Keep Learning!!!