Understanding a Process

Processes are the heart of project management. If you want to think of project management like a project management professional, think in terms of processes. Almost everything in the world of project management is done through processes.

What is a process, anyway? Back up a little and look around you; you will see processes everywhere, not only in project management. For example, when you cook rice, you go through a process. The water, and the uncooked rice are the input items to this process. The rice maker is the tool, and how you wash, prepare, measure, and cook the rice is the technique. A bowl of cooked rice is an output item from this process. So, a process is a set of interrelated activities performed to obtain a specified set of products, results, or services. A process, as explained in the example and in Figure 1.1, consists of three elements: input, tools and techniques, and outputs

INESERT FIGURE 1.1

INPUTS- Tools & Techniques - Outputs

Of course, you can come up with other examples of processes that you have been using in your life without realizing it. In project management, you use processes to accomplish things, such as developing a project schedule, directing and managing the project execution, and developing and managing the project team.

As illustrated in Figure 1.1, each process consists of three elements, described in the following list:

◆ Input. The input to a process consists of the raw data that is needed to start the process. For example, the list of activities that need to be scheduled is one of several input items to the process that will be used to develop the schedule of a project.

◆ Tools and techniques. Tools and techniques are the methods used to operate on the input to transform it into output. For example, project management software that helps to develop a schedule is a tool used in the schedule development process.

◆ Output. The output is the outcome or the result of a process. Each process contains at least one output item; otherwise, there would be no point in performing a process. For example, an output item of the schedule development process is, well, the project schedule.

Now that you understand what a process is, you likely realize that you will be using different processes at the different stages of a project, such as planning and execution. Actually, the whole lifecycle of a project, (and the primary PBOX steps) can be understood in terms of five stages, with each stage corresponding to a group of processes.