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PREFACE

PREFACE

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) is the globally recognized standard for
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the project management profession. The knowledge contained in the PMBOK Guide has evolved from the good
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practices of the project management practitioners who contributed to the development of the standard. In a similar
manner, the knowledge contained in this Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide – Fifth Edition includes good
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practices of software project management contributed by the PMI – IEEE Computer Society Software Extension
committee, the subject matter experts, and the public reviewers, all of whom provided insightful comments and
recommendations. This Software Extension, like the PMBOK Guide, does not cover every conceivable situation but
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rather presents generally recognized good practices.

Many of the 47 processes in the PMBOK Guide are applicable to the management of software projects. This
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extension builds upon the PMBOK Guide by describing additional knowledge and practices and by modifying some
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of them. It is intended to be consistent with the PMBOK Guide. The primary contribution of this extension to the
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PMBOK Guide is description of processes that are applicable for managing adaptive life cycle software projects.
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Adaptive development methods and life cycles are well suited for development of software and management of
software projects because they take advantage of the intangible nature of software. Used together, the PMBOK
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Guide and this extension provide a balanced view of methods, tools, and techniques for managing software projects
across the life cycle continuum from highly predictive life cycles to highly adaptive life cycles.

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This Software Extension is written in the style of, and follows the structure of the PMBOK Guide. For consistency
and ease of reference, the paragraph naming and numbering coincides with the PMBOK Guide. This extension
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is also based on the relevant ISO/IEC and IEEE standards for software engineering. These standards are cited, as
appropriate, throughout this extension.

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