Clearing the Doubts
In our effort to clarify the above, and the need for a project management methodology, we will map the PMBOK® Guide process groups to the stages of our CAM2P™ Model. You can do the same for your own corporate internal methodology or any other project management methodology that you use.
Mapping Process Groups to CAM2P™
As noted earlier, the PMBOK® Guide offers us five process groups called: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing ... let us abbreviate them as: I, P, E, M&C, C. The PMBOK® Guide also provides us with an explanation that we need to Initiate, Plan, Execute, Monitor and Control, and Close the project ... OR ... phase ... therefore, we use I, P, E, M&C, and C for the project as well as a phase.
Project Perspective
In the next graphic we focus on the project and we show that we do indeed:
- Initiate every project,
- Plan the project,
- Execute the project,
- Monitor and control the project, and
- Close the project.
Figure 6: The PMBOK® Guide process groups mapped to the CAM2P™ Project Life Span Model
Phase Perspective
As the PMBOK® Guide clearly explains, we do also I, P, E, M&C, and C each project phase (or stage), which we show in Figure 7.
Figure 7: The PMBOK® Guide process groups repeating with every phase
We know that some readers might be surprised, even shocked, at the detail shown in Figure 7, from the beginning we said we will challenge the conventional wisdom and here we are.
We have personally interviewed many PMPs and even professionals conducting PMP classes that did not know the above and only know how to teach people to memorize the I, P, E, M&C, and C processes. We know that some might even feel insulted by my statement here and we are sorry if that is the case, but the fact is they may well have memorized the PMBOK® Guide contents yet still do not understand its basics.
Yes - we initiate the pre-launch stage (pre-project - including feasibility study) and we plan for it and we execute it (doing the work of the pre-project is execution), and we do monitor and control and ultimately close the phase. We do the same for the next stage and the next and the next until we reach the end of the project life span.
Thus the process groups repeat, as many times as there are stages. Maybe not every single process applies every time and maybe in small/simple projects we do not need to do this if we can treat the whole project as a single phase. However, as projects grow in size or complexity, what we present here could mean the difference between project success and project failure.
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Process Groups vs. Project Life Span
