Direct and Manage Project Execution

Direct and Manage Project Execution is a process that falls under the integration management knowledge area and executing process group. For details on knowledge areas and process groups, please click here. In simple words, the project manager ensures that the project management plan is implemented in its entirety. If you understand the project management plan, then this topic could be really easy to grasp. One important thing to note here is that this process is the integration part of executing, so it does not cover the entire executing process group. Think of it as a process where you just gather the information from all over the executing processes in different knowledge areas and then using that information to measure the project performance but comparing it against the project performance baseline mentioned in the project management plan.

The key to be a successful project manager is to keep the word integrate or integration all the time in your mind. It is not the project which is to be managed. Its actually the individual knowledge areas plans that are to be monitored and managed. It is about knowing the effect of change in one plan on all others. For example, change in scope management plan may have effects on HR, time/schedule, cost, risk, etc. management plans. The day you start thinking on these lines and can link the relationship among the different individual plans, you will become a great project manager; just like me. 🙂

While managing the components of the project management plan, the project team is required to implement one or all of the following actions which are the result of the decisions taken by the change control board after receiving the change requests:

1. Corrective Actions: as the name suggests, these actions are taken to execute the work in a way that brings the project in line with the project management plan
2. Preventive Actions: unlike the corrective actions which are taken when something goes wrong, the preventive actions are taken before that by identifying the risk in advance and preventing it.
3. Defect Repair: another word for rework when the component of the project is not as per the specification. This happens when the work is completed without any corrective or preventive action taken but does not result in the required state.

The details on these actions will be provided in the preceding articles. Once these actions are taken, all the effected component in the project management plan are updated to reflect the latest status of the project. Besides updating the project baseline, if needed, and individual management plans, project documents like requirements document, risk register, stakeholder register, logs, etc. are also updated.