Module 2

Project management knowledge areas: Project integration management. Project scope

management. Project time management. Project cost management. Project quality management.
Project resource management. Project communications management. Project risk management.

Project management knowledge areas

Project integration management.

 Project integration management is the umbrella that covers all other project management
knowledge areas. It knits together individual processes and tasks into one project with
defined goals and deliverables.

 How will this help me?

 Project integration management helps by coordinating all the various parts of a project,
ensuring different team members follow one overall plan. It helps to keep the project
running smoothly and efficiently.

Project scope management

 How many times have you started a project just to have extraneous tasks slipped in, making
your completion times creep up? This is why project scope must be well-defined and
defended throughout the process.

 How will this help me?

 Project scope management helps you to stay on top of extra tasks that might be added
during the course of the project. Therefore, it makes dealing with any expected or
unexpected increases in costs or workflow much more manageable.

Project time management.

  Nearly all projects rely on several different timelines and the schedules of multiple people.
Some team members may overestimate how much time it will take to complete a project in
order to leave a cushion and not feel hurried.

 How will this help me?

 Project time management will help you to manage the project within the deadlines and
schedules originally set. With this, you’ll be better able to ensure the project moves
smoothly to completion in a timely manner.

Project cost management

 With or without a budget, your project will cost money. Keeping costs low, or at least at an
expected or reasonable level, is a fundamental part of showing ROI on a project. After all, if
you can’t definitively lay out how much a project will cost, how will you be able to quantify if
you’ve made any money?

 How will this help me?

 Project cost management is critical to make sure you remain within budget. Financial
challenges that arise during a project can throw up unplanned surprises and affect
profitability — project cost management can help avoid this.

Project quality management.

 In project management, quality isn’t the same as perfection. It’s not practical to spend the
time and resources to take a project to perfection — and in many cases, that’s not even
attainable. The goal of project quality management is to achieve consistency across your
projects.

 How will this help me?

 Completing a project on time is one thing — but completing it to a high standard of work is
arguably more important. Project quality management allows you to make sure what you
deliver meets with client approval.

Project resource management.

 Working with people is part of the reason you signed up for project management, right? One
of the most rewarding parts of this process is creating teams that click and helping individual
team members grow and learn new tasks. That’s why this project management knowledge
area is more than just setting schedules and assigning tasks.

 How will this help me?

 Project resource management is a benefit for knowing who, and what, you need in place for
the project to be a success. You can check that you have enough people, the right people,
and project team — and look for extra resource if there are any gaps.

Project communications management

 How many times have you heard the phrase: “Keep me in the loop?” And yet, when changes
happen, maybe important stakeholders were left out?
  There is a fine line between under and over communication. Your communications
management plan is crucial to help identify who needs to know what and when before your
project start

 How will this help me?

 On any large-scale project, communication is key — making sure everyone involved is

informed on changes, updates and issues at the right time. A breakdown in communications
can be problematic, so it’s not an area where you want to be weak.

Project risk management.

 The truth is that no project goes off without a hitch. And it’s unrealistic to look at a project
and assume everything will go smoothly.

 If you can manage your firefighting by identifying major project risks and the mitigation
plans associated with them, your team and project requesters will be prepared and more
forgiving when issues in a project come up. As an added bonus, you’ll have the benefits of
time and energy upfront, rather than trying to troubleshoot at the eleventh hour when your
team is stressed and up against a deadline.

 How will this help me?

 It’s rare that a project doesn’t come up against a stumbling block or two. Project risk
management can flag upcoming problems and equip you with the means to work around
and through them, rather than causing major complications.