Project Management Plan & its Components

Project Management Plan (PM Plan) is undoubtedly the most important document of any project. It is the central document that is created for a project, and this document defines the basis for all project work.

There are a 9 knowledge areas apart from Integration management, and a management plan document is created for each of the 9 knowledge areas. Apart from these,  there are other plans and baselines that are developed during the project planning process. PM Plan integrates and consolidates all of the plans and baselines from the planning processes. PM

PMBOK Definition: “The project management plan is the document that describes how the project will be executed, monitored, and controlled.”

Project Management Plan (PM Plan)

• created by Project Manager
• Approved by the project manager or project sponsor or the functional managers who provide the resources for the project.
• Output of the Develop Project Management Plan Process.
• Once project baselines are defined, changes to PM Plan can be made only formally through Perform Integrated change control process (PICC).
• belongs to Integration Management Knowledge Area
• belongs to Planning Process Group
• a consolidated document of all plans and baselines developed in Project planning processes.

What are the components of a Project Management Plan ?

Below are the list of various components, which together constitute the Project Management Plan.

1. Project Baselines
   1. Scope Baseline
   2. Schedule Baseline
   3. Cost Baseline
2. Subsidiary Management Plans (9 Knowledge Area Management Plans + Requirements MP)
   1. Scope Management Plan
   2. Schedule Management Plan
   3. Cost Management Plan
   4. Quality Management Plan
   5. Resource Management Plan
   6. Communication Management Plan
   7. Risk Management Plan
   8. Procurement Management Plan
   9. Stakeholder Management Plan
   10. Requirements Management Plan
3. Additional Components
   1. Change Management Plan
   2. Configuration Management Plan
   3. Performance Measurement Baseline
   4. Project Life Cycle
   5. Development Approach (Description of how work will be executed)
   6. Management Reviews
   7. Any project specific management processes that are used in the project (Project Manager decides on these.)

It should be noted here that, the components of PM plan are not limited to the above components. There can be more.

Further, any other documents, apart from those part of PM Plan described above, that are created in the course of a project come under Project Documents. Check the link to see the list of Project Documents.