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4 - PROJECT INTEGRATION MANAGEMENT

4.2.1 Develop Project Management Plan: Inputs

Section 4.2.1 of the PMBOK Guide indicates that developing a project management plan is the process of
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defining, preparing, and coordinating all subsidiary plans and integrating them into a comprehensive project
management plan (see also Figure 4-5 of the PMBOK Guide). As stated previously, development of a software
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project plan tends to be a process of planning the primary activities, coordinating development of subordinate plans,
and integrating them into a software project management plan. In a mature organization, development of a software
project management plan may involve the use of templates and the tailoring of existing organizational assets.

Estimates of cost, schedule, technical infrastructure, and risk provide important inputs for developing a project
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management plan, as indicated in Section 4.2.1 of the PMBOK Guide. Every software project differs from all past
projects because software replication is a simple process that does not require a project, in contrast to replication
of physical artifacts so there are typically many unknowns and uncertainties during the initiating and planning
stages of a software project. The unknowns and uncertainties often result in imprecise and inaccurate software
project estimates.
See Sections 6 and 7 of this Software Extension for more information concerning estimation for software
projects. ISO/IEC/IEEE Standard 16326 [18] also provides useful information concerning inputs for planning
software projects.

4.2.1.1 Project Charter

See Section 4.2.1.1 of the PMBOK Guide.
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4.2.1.2 Outputs from Other Processes

Outputs from the processes described in Sections 5 through 13 of the PMBOK Guide and this Software
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Extension are integrated to create a software project management plan.

4.2.1.3 Enterprise Environmental Factors

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Enterprise environmental factors, in addition to those in Section 4.2.1.3 of the PMBOK Guide, which may impact
planning a software project include availability of skilled human resources; policies for using open-source software;
and existing technical assets. Existing technical asset may include software that can be reused; development and
testing environments tools; supporting infrastructure and facilities; and the technical infrastructure, which includes
networks, data repositories, and simulation and modeling facilities.

4.2.1.4 Organizational Process Assets

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Organizational process assets listed in Section 4.2.1.4 of the PMBOK Guide are applicable for software
projects. In addition, methods and tools for change control and configuration management are needed to control
evolving work products such as software code baselines because software code may be updated and changed

50 ©2013 Project Management Institute. Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition
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