We’re continuing a series of posts concerning the project management best practice processes described in the Project Management Institute’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). So far we’ve covered Develop Project Charter, Identify Stakeholders, Plan Stakeholder Engagement, Manage Stakeholder Engagement, and Develop Project Management Plan. This post addresses Direct and Manage Project Work.
What’s the purpose of Direct and Manage Project Work?
This process involves executing the Project Management Plan, to create the project deliverables and achieve the project objectives.
Since creating deliverables is application-area specific, there isn’t a lot of detail in the PMBOK Guide about how to perform this process – it will vary from project to project.
Why is Direct and Manage Project Work important?
Aside from creating deliverables, this process is important because it’s the source of Work Performance Data – raw data about what has happened on the project e.g. Kate has worked on activity X for 8 hours and spent $500.
Notice that, by itself, Work Performance Data doesn’t tell us whether the situation is good or bad. It’s just data.
Many other processes evaluate Work Performance Data to create Work Performance Information – metrics that do tell us whether the situation is good or bad. e.g. Kate spent $200 less than the allocated budget, so that’s good.
Who performs Direct and Manage Project Work?
The project manager oversees the activities being performed to create the deliverables, and ensures the project is being conducted in an integrated and balanced way as per the plan. The deliverables are actually created by the project team and other stakeholders.
Interested to know more about this process?
Check out one of our project management best practices courses.
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