All Courses

Simplilearn Resources

Project Management All Resources Articles E-Books On-Demand Webinars

Project Documentation and its Importance
Article
PMBOK� Sixth Edition is Here! What Project Managers Should Know
Article
10 Important Areas of Project Management Interview Questions & Answers
Article
Why a Feasibility Study is Important in Project Management
Article
Free eBook: Crack PRINCE2� in 7 Days
Ebook
Project Scope Management: What It is and Why It�s Important
Article
PRINCE2� Vs PMP� � The Battle of Certifications
Article
Free eBook: Guide To The PMP Exam Changes
Ebook
Project Management Learning Series: Fast Tracking versus Crashing
Article
The Basic Principles of Project Management
Article
Free eBook: Guide To The CCBA And CBAP Certifications
Ebook
Project Documentation and its Importance
Project Documentation and its Importance
Author Eshna
Last updated October 4, 2018

Flip follow us in feedly

106617 Views 5 Comments

Project management leaders are often asked a common question: what is the
importance of project documentation and how can I ensure I�m performing the
function right. There�s no doubt that project documentation is a vital part of
project management. It is substantiated by the essential two functions of
documentation: to make sure that project requirements are fulfilled and to
establish traceability with regard to what has been done, who has done it, and when
it has been done.

Documentation must lay the foundation for quality, traceability, and history for
both the individual document and for the entire project documentation. It is also
extremely important that the documentation is well arranged, easy to read, and
adequate.

Here's the video on Introduction to PMP� Certification Training.

Project Management Uses

Experienced project managers excel at making and following standard templates for
their project documents. They reuse successful project plans, business cases,
requirement sheets, and project status reports to help them focus on their core
competency of managing the project rather than balancing the unmanageable
paperwork.
Project management usually follows major phases:

Project Details

Details of Project Management phases

Feasibility Report

The purpose of a feasibility report is to investigate and showcase task

requirements and to determine whether the project is worthwhile and feasible.
Feasibility is verified by five primary factors � technology and system, economic,
legal, operational, and schedule. Secondary feasibility factors include market,
resource, culture, and financial factors.

Project Charter

Project charter is sometimes also known as the project overview statement. A

project charter includes high-level planning components of a project, laying the
foundation for the project. It acts as an anchor, holding you to the project's
objectives and guiding you as a navigator through the milestones. It is a formal
approval of the project.

Requirement Specification

A requirement specification document is a complete description of the system to be

developed. It contains all interactions users will have with the system as well as
non-functional requirements.

Design Document

The design document showcases the high- or low-level design components of the
system. The design document used for high-level design gradually evolves to include
low-level design details. This document describes the architectural strategies of
the system.

Work Plan/Estimate

A work plan sets out the phases, activities and tasks needed to deliver a project.
The timeframes required to deliver a project, as well as resources and milestones,
are also shown in a work plan. The work plan is referred to continually throughout
the project. Actual progress is reviewed on a daily basis against the stated plan
and is therefore the most critical document to deliver projects successfully.

Traceability Matrix

A traceability matrix is a table that traces a requirement to the tests that are
needed to verify that the requirement is fulfilled. A good traceability matrix will
provide backward and forward traceability: a requirement can be traced to a test
and a test to a requirement.

Issue Tracker

An issue tracker manages and maintains a list of issues. It helps add issues,
assign them to people, and track the status and current responsibilities. It also
helps develop a knowledge base that contains information on resolutions to common
problems.

200+ PROJECT MANAGEMENT TEMPLATES & DOCUMENTS

Change Management Document

A change management document is used to capture progress and to record all changes
made to a system. This helps in linking unanticipated adverse effects of a change.

Test Document

A test document includes test plan and test cases. A test case is a detailed
procedure that fully tests a feature or an aspect of a feature. While a test plan
describes what to test, a test case describes how to perform a particular test.

Interested in taking up a Project Management Professional? Check out our Course

Preview to check whether you need training or not

Technical Document

Technical document includes product definition and specification, design,

manufacturing/development, quality assurance, product/system liability, product
presentation, description of features, functions and interfaces, safe and correct
use, service and repair of a technical product as well as its safe disposal.

Functional Document

Functional specifications define the inner workings of the proposed system. They do
not include the specification of how the system function will be implemented.
Instead, this project documentation focuses on what various other agents (such as
people or a computer) might observe when interacting with the system.

User Manual

User Manual is the standard operating procedure for the system.

Transition/Rollout Plan

The rollout plan includes detailed instructions on how to implement the system in
an organization. It includes the schematic planning of the rollout steps and
phases. It also describes the training plan for the system.

Handover Document

The handover document is a synopsis of the system with a listing of all the
deliverables of the system.

Contract Closure

Contract closure refers to the process of completing all tasks and terms that are
mentioned as deliverable and outstanding upon the initial drafting of the contract.
This is only applicable in cases of outsourced projects.

Lessons Learned

Lessons learned in project documentation are used at midpoints of the project and
at project completion to catalog significant new learnings that have evolved as a
result of the project. They are used to build the knowledge base for the
organization and to establish a history of
best and worse practices in project implementation and customer relation.

Good project documentation is certainly a mandatory element in managing projects,

but it is also extremely useful in keeping projects moving at speedy pace, ensuring
all stakeholders are as informed as possible, and helping the organization make
better improvements in future projects. We hope this information was useful for you
and wish you good luck in your PMP� certification journey.

PMP is a registered trademark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Find our PMP� Certification Online Classroom training classes in top cities:
Name Date Place
PMP� Certification 6 Apr -4 May 2019, Weekend batch Your City View Details
PMP� Certification 8 Apr -23 Apr 2019, Weekdays batch Chennai View Details
PMP� Certification 12 Apr -10 May 2019, Weekdays batch Mumbai View Details
About the Author
Eshna is a writer at Simplilearn. She has done Masters in Journalism and Mass
Communication and is a Gold Medalist in the same. A voracious reader, she has
penned several articles in leading national newspapers like TOI, HT and The
Telegraph. She loves traveling and photography.

Recommended articles for you Understanding the importance of PMP� Boot camps
ArticleThe Importance of Having Clearly Defined Acceptanc... ArticleImportance of
Tuckman ladder model in HR manag... Article
LEAVE COMMENT

PMBOK� Sixth Edition is Here! What Project Managers Should Know

PMBOK� Sixth Edition is Here! What Project Managers Should Know
Tim Jerome Tim Jerome
Published on Aug 16, 2017 Flip follow us in feedly

45635 Views
PMBOK� Guide � Sixth Edition was released in September 2017 and PMP� certification
exam format will be revised on 26 March 2018, according to PMI.

The exam is not about the PMBOK? Guide, but the guide does influence the exam a
lot. Here�s what to expect, and what you could see as impacts to the exam as a
result of the updated 6th edition.

Centralization of Effective Leadership

A chapter has been added that talks about what Project Management Leadership means,
and PMI�s expectations of a project management leader. The new edition also reviews
competencies and skills that project management professionals must possess. This
makes sense, considering that we�ve seen the Exam Content Outline introduce this
throughout the last few years, and it was a logical step to bring it into the
guide.

Effective leadership is mentioned in the 5th edition but is now being consolidated
into one section. Consider this as a continuation of PMI�s message�a call to action
that Project Management has three components that aspiring professionals need to
continually develop: technical project management, business acumen, and leadership.

Preparing for your PMP� Certification? Take this Practice Test to learn where you
stand.
Terminology Changes
The 5th edition of the PMBOK� Guide made great progress in standardizing phrases,
terms, and definitions. This was needed to achieve alignment with the ISO standard
21500. This, also, was a bigger change than one would consider�the PMI Lexicon of
terms and Exam Content Outline were aligned to match the same terminology. This was
a big step. Once this was achieved, students and project managers could see a term
in one area, knowing it would mean the same in every other use.

This new edition continues towards terminology consistency, with these primary
updates:

Human Resource Management will become Resource Management. This means you don�t
merely manage teams, but also bulldozers, shovels, cases of nuts and bolts, and
bottled water.

Time Management will become Schedule Management. This makes sense; we don�t manage
time, but we manage and control our schedule.

It�s interesting how PMI discusses these changes; they state �� Areas have been
renamed to more accurately reflect which elements can be managed� and which
cannot��

Knowledge Area Changes

The structure of the Knowledge Areas will be updated, with the following details:

Key Concepts will be organized. You can look to a specific section to review the
core message of the knowledge area.

Trends and Emerging Practices have been added. Current learnings and business
behavior are now seen to be a component that you can integrate and are expected to
consider. The guide is not something static, but something that we can modify based
on needs inside and outside the project. It is moved closer to a dynamic set of
tools supported by thoughtful analysis as well as best practice.

Tailoring Considerations are now a component of each Knowledge Area. Again, having
each section discuss how to modify it based on constraints, consideration,
organizational preference, and business need is exciting. Having guidance in
modifying the PMBOK� Guide will assist in understanding that this is a component of
control, required if you are to actively manage.

Considerations for Agile/Adaptive Environments are included. Agile is currently

mentioned as a methodology in Project Life Cycle discussions. In the 6th edition,
each Knowledge Area will provide considerations for integrating agile methods based
on its skill set and processes.

All these updates support not only increased clarity but also provide a focus on
how this material can be best applied. This is the core of the PMP Certification
Exam; it tests not only one�s knowledge but how well the applicant can apply what
they know as a best practice in ambiguous, often confusing situations.

This bodes well for the profession of project management, and it bodes well for us,
too. The guide gives us not only what we need to do today to make projects and
business better, but what we need to think about and prepare for the future.
Project management and our careers within it are a continuing story, not a stairway
that ends with a closed door.

PMP, PMBOK are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Find our PMP� Certification Online Classroom training classes in top cities:
Name Date Place
PMP� Certification 6 Apr -4 May 2019, Weekend batch Your City View Details
PMP� Certification 8 Apr -23 Apr 2019, Weekdays batch Chennai View Details
PMP� Certification 12 Apr -10 May 2019, Weekdays batch Mumbai View Details
About the Author
Tim Jerome, PMP� MBA, has led and supported projects globally for over 15 years.
Tim has taught Project Management and PMP� Certification preparatory courses for
over 10 years, assisting in educating and supporting hundreds of project managers.

Recommended articles for you PMBOK� - A Guide to Project Management Body of

Knowledge ArticleRita Mulcahy's PMP Prep and PMBOK Guide ArticleStudying PMBOK� 6:
Why Good Is Better Than Best in Projec... Article
LEAVE COMMENT
Share to WhatsApp
Share to LinkedIn
Share to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Share to Pinterest
30
SHARES