Easy way to memorize the Inputs of Knowledge Area Planning Processes (other than Integration)

There are NINE planning processes for each Knowledge Area other than Integration:

• Plan SCOPE Management
• Plan SCHEDULE Management
• Plan COST Management
• Plan QUALITY Management
• Plan HUMAN RESOURCES Management
• Plan COMMUNICATIONS Management,
• Plan RISK Management
• Plan PROCUREMENT Management and 
• Plan STAKEHOLDER Management.

All these NINE planning processes have a similar function:

• Plan the respective Knoweldge Area in advance
• about how to handle changes
• controlling baselines where applicable
• measuring quality etc. 

Because of this similarity, if you observe PMBoK(R) 5th Edition guide closely, you will notice the following. If you can remember the following, its easy to remember the inputs of these NINE Planning processes.

• Project Management Plan, Enterprise Environmental Factors and Organizational Process Assets is required input for all these NINE processes.
• SCOPE, SCHEDULE, COST (the Triple Constraints) and RISK planning processes would additionally need Project Charter. SCOPE, SCHEDULE and COST all have exactly the same four inputs. 
• Stakeholder Register is a required input for RISK, QUALITY, COMMUNICATIONS, STAKEHOLDER (yes, Identify Stakeholders is done first, and then Plan STAKEHOLDER Management) and PROCUREMENT. COMMUNICATIONS and STAKEHOLDER have exactly the same four inputs.
• Activity Resource Requirements is the final input required for HUMAN RESOURCES in addition to the the three mentioned in point # 1.
• Risk Register and Requirements Documentation are the last two inputs required for QUALITY along with the three mentioned in point # 1 and Stakeholder Register mentioned in point #3.
• PROCUREMENT = QUALITY + 3 more inputs.Those three are Activity Resource Requirements, Project Schedule and Activity Cost Estimates

From the above observation, you notice that with little practice, you can remember those inputs. Knowing one of SCOPE or SCHEDULE or COST is enough to know the inputs for all those three. Same way, knowing COMMUNICATIONS or PROCUREMENT is enough to know the inputs for both of these.

Memorizing Project Cost Management Planning Processes Inputs and Outputs using Cascading Inputs Method

Project Cost Management is a very important knowledge area. As a Project Manager, your project's performance is constantly measured against cost (and other constraints such as Scope, Schedule etc.).

Project Cost Management has a total of 4 processes. Out of these 4 processes, 3 are in Planning Process Group and 1 in Monitoring and Controlling Process Group. In this post, I present, how you can easily remember the Inputs and Outputs to and from the 3 planning processes in Project Cost Management.

Step 1:

Project Cost Management Planning Processes Input and Output - Step 1

Project Cost Management Planning Processes Inputs and Outputs - Step 2

Project Cost Management Planning Processes Group Inputs and Outputs - Step 3

Memorizing Project Scope Management Planning Processes - Inputs and Outputs using Cascading Inputs Method

Project Scope Management has a total of six Processes. Out of these six, four are Planning Processes. They are: Plan Scope Management, Collect Requirements, Define Scope and Create WBS. These are very important processes for a project, because based on Scope only you can plan other constraints like Cost, Schedule, Risk etc properly.

Please find below a step by step process that you can use to easily memorize the Inputs and Outputs of these four Planning Processes in Scope Management Knowledge Area.

The term Cascading Inputs Method - indicates that the outputs of one process are used as inputs by other processes in same knowledge area. This is true mostly. This term is my own invention. Nothing to do with PMBoK(R) or PMI.

Step 1:

Project Scope Management Planning processes Inputs and Outputs Step 1

Step 2

Project Scope Management Planning Processes Inputs and Outputs Step 2

Step 3

Project Scope Management Planning Processes Inputs and Outputs Step 3

Step 4

Project Scope Management Planning Processes Inputs and Outputs Step 4

If you practice this before the exam three to four times, you can easily remember the inputs and outputs.
If you had observe closely, all these processes produce two outputs each. Something for you not to missout.

Memorizing Project Time Management Planning Processes - Inputs and Outputs using Cascading Inputs Method

Well, lets look at Project Time Management Planning processes. There are six planning processes here. A careful observation helps you to see that outputs of one process are used as inputs by the subsequent processes. This observation is what I call as "Cascading Inputs Method" - my own term (nothing to do with PMBoK(R) or PMI(R)). There are five steps in this method.
Step 1:

Project Time Management Planning Processes - Step 1 of Inputs and Outputs

Step 2:

Project Time Management Planning Processes - Step 2 of Inputs and Outputs

Step 3

Project Time Management Planning Processes - Step 3 of Inputs and Outputs

Step 4

Project Time Management Planning Processes - Step 4 of Inputs and Outputs

Step 5

Project Time Management Planning Processes - Step 5 of Inputs and Outputs

Project Time Management processes are very important from the PMP Exam point of view. Therefore, if you practice these steps multiple times, you can easily visualize the Inputs and Outputs. And also, certain important outputs like Project schedule network diagram, Schedule baseline, Project Schedule - which process creates them you can easily remember.

For the last process in Project Time Management i.e Control Schedule, you can see my earlier post Controlling Processes Inputs and Outputs. I have grouped Controlling processes together as there is lot of similarity between them.

Memorizing M & C Processes (excluding Integration Management Knowledge Area) Inputs and Outputs

To begin with, if I say, there are 47 inputs and 49 outputs to and from the 9 Monitoring and Controlling Processes (excluding Integration Management Knowledge Area), and you have to memorize them. You think I am mad. I might appear mad towards getting my PMP Certification, but there is a method to my madness. Read carefully below...

Do you agree that

• The Monitoring and Controlling Processes for each Knowledge area (excluding Integration Management that is not discussed here and Human Resources Management which doesn't have a Monitoring and Controlling process) have similar purpose?
• Each knowledge area (again  excluding Integration Management that is not discussed here and Human Resources Management which doesn't have a Monitoring and Controlling process) produces certain key project documents, other than their respective management plans, with respect to its own knowledge area? For example, Scope Management produces Requirements Management Plan, Requirements Traceability Matrix. Time Management produces Project Schedule. Quality Management produces Quality Metrics, Quality Checklists etc.
• If you have agreed to both the questions above, then you understand that since these processes perform similar activities with respect to their own knowledge areas, there must be some common Inputs and Outputs for these processes. Isn't it?

Enough said, let us look at the I/O Diagram...

Observations on Inputs

• Project Management Plan and Work Performance Data (WPD) is input to all the 9 Processes. Which means by remembering these two, you can remember a total of 18 inputs.
• Organizational Process Assets (OPA) is input to Scope, Schedule, Cost and Quality Controlling Processes that start with the word "Control". To remember easily, the last three knowledge areas - Risk, Procurements and Stakeholder's Controlling processes doesn't have OPA as input. This will make you to remember another 5.
• Requirements Management Plan and Requirements Traceability Matrix both are key Project documents that are produced by Scope Management Knowledge area, so they are input to both the Validate Scope and Control Scope processes.
• Project Schedule, Schedule Data and Project Calenders (this comes from Procurement process as well) produced from Schedule Management Knowledge area are inputs to its respective Controlling process.
• Like this, observe how the other key Project documents and how they go as inputs into their respective knowledge area controlling processes. For ex: Risk Register is input to Control Risks.
• Use logic for the rest of the inputs other than common ones, and you should easily remember them.

Observations on Outputs

• This is mind blowing... by remembering just 5 common outputs, you can actually easily remember 40 outputs of the 49. Now you should appreciate my method to madness. And remembering these common 5 outputs, you can remember 5 knowledge areas completely. 
• Change Requests, Work Performance Information (WPI), Project Document Updates, Project Management Plan Updates and Organizational Process Assets Updates - are the five common outputs from all the processes that start with the word "Control". 
• Both Control Schedule and Control Costs processes produce their respective Forecasts. - Important to remember for the exam.
• Check the rest of the outputs for Control Quality and Validate Scope.

For more information

• How the deliverable is created, validated, verified and accepted, please check my another post Deliverable Lifecycle. Its important to see this post, as Validate Scope, Control Quality both have connections with respect to Inputs and Outputs above and you can clearly visualize them in that post.
• How Work performance data (WPD), and Work performance information (WPI) and finally Work performance reports (WPR) is related, check my another blog Work Performance data to reports process flow
• If you observe, you will note that all the Controlling processes produce Change Requests as outputs. If you would like to know the complete Change Management flow, please follow my Change Management Process Flow

Disclaimer

• The abbreviations WPD, WPI and WPR I have used to reduce my typing work. They are not PMI(R) abbreviations.
• I have used this method to memorize the inputs and outputs for Controlling processes. I am sharing this information here, with the assumption that it might be beneficial for others who are preparing for PMP Exam. If you find this post or any other post, not to your understanding please feel free to post a comment, I would be glad to explain more. If you find this information is not helpful for you, please don't mind, and I am thankful for your visit anyway.

Project performance baselines

After elaborate planning, now your project is executing. During this phase,  you will have to constantly keep an eye on Project's baselines and see how the Project work is performing. The Project performance baselines are Scope baseline, Schedule baseline and Cost baseline. The three constraints outlined by the triangle - remember?

Well, in the following diagram, let me show you:

• The definitions of these baselines. Its very very important to remember them for the Exam. Especially the Scope and Cost baseline.
• The processes that create these baselines. Again very very important for the Exam. Most people tend to think that "Define Scope" process creates Scope baseline, "Estimate Costs" process creates the Cost baseline. Check the diagram to findout why they are wrong.
• These baselines are used as input either directly or via the Project Management Plan.
• When are these baselines updated? 

Deliverable Lifecycle

You undertake a project to product a Final Product, Service or Result. Right? This is your deliverable. If you closely look at the PMBoK 5th edition processes, you will notice that during Execution, "Direct and Manage Project Work" Integration process provides the deliverable to "Control Quality" Monitoring and Controlling process. After the testing, if any defects are found, a Change Request is raised and routed via the "Perform Integrated Change Control" Integration process. If the Change Request is approved, it is routed to "Direct and Manage Project Work" Integration Process, for the team to implement the approved change to correct the deliverable.

Once the deliverable is successfully tested, "Control Quality" Monitoring and Controlling process turns this into Verified Deliverable and sends to "Validate Scope" another Monitoring and Controlling process. Again here, if any defects are found, they are routed via the "Perform Integrated Change Control" Integration process. And what happens afterwards, you already know, isn't it?

If the customer has given a formal signoff, the Accepted deliverable is passed on to the customer via the "Close Project or Phase" integration process.