Planning process groups outputs.

"He who fails to plan is planning to fail" (Winston Churchill)

There are many processes and outputs in this group.

Planning Process	Outputs
Develop project management plan	Project Management Plan
Collect requirements	Requirements documents Requirements management plan Requirement traceability matrix
Define scope	Project scope statement Project document updates
Create WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)	WBS WBS Dictionary Scope baseline Project document updates
Define activities	Activity list Activity attributes Milestone list
Sequence activities	Project schedule network diagram Project document updates
Estimate activity recources	Activity resource requirement Resource breakdown structure Project document updates
Estimate activity duration	Activity duration estimates Project document updates
Develop schedule	Project schedule Schedule base line Schedule data Project document updates
Estimate costs	Activity cost estimates Basic of estimates Project document updates
Determine budget	Cost performance baseline Project funding requirement Project document updates
Plan quality	Quality management plan Quality metrics Quality checklists Process improvement plan Project document updates
Develop human resource plan	Human resource plan
Plan communications	Communications management plan Project document updates
Plan risk management	Risk management plan
Identify risks	Risk register
Perform qualitative risk analysis	Risk register updates
Perform quantitative risk analysis	Risk register updates
Plan risk responses	Risk register updates Project management plan updates Risk related contract decisions Project document updates
Plan procurements	Procurement management plan Procurement statement of work Make-or-buy decision Procurement documents Source selection criteria Change request

Depend on the size of the project,there may be several processes are not used. But some of them are very important,they are :

• A team contract  
• A project scope statement
• A work breakdown structure
• A project schedule

Five process groups and their outputs.

Why do organization need to tailor project management concepts, such as those found in th PMBOK Guide, to create their own methodology ?

Depend on your organization’s particular needs, you should create your own methodology, the PMBOK Guide is just a standard,different organizations have different ways of doing things. In the PMBOK Guide there are five process groups:  initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, closing. Base on this basic,many organizations develop others methodology. For example : PRINCE2 with eight process groups step by step  as follows  : starting up a project,planning,initiating a project,directing a project,controlling a stage, managing product delivery,managing stage boundaries,closing a project. Some others methodology are Agile methodologies, Rational Unified Process framework, Six Sigma methodologies …

What are some key outputs of each process group ?

It is better to have a moderate or even small amount of success on an important project than huge success on one that unimportant(Schwalbe).

You already know there are 5 process groups. So what are they produce to be a successful process ?

After the pre-initiation tasks, you should start the initiating process groups. There are two processes in this first group : Develop project charter and Identify stakeholders.  Their outputs are project charter, stakeholder register and stakeholder management strategy.

Stakeholders Register : Identify key stakeholders.

Name	Position	Internal/External	Project Role	Contact
Joe	CEO	Internal	Sponsor	abc@gmail.com
Bin	CIO	Internal	Project Manager	abc@gmail.com
Ho	IT staff	Internal	Team member	abc@gmail.com
Kevin	Business Analysist	External	Consultant	abc@gmail.com

Stakeholder management strategy : a way to gain more help from stakeholders, do not public it.

Name	Level of Interest	Level of Influence	Potential Management Strategy
Joe	High	High	Have a lot of face to face meetings. Focus on finalcial benefits of the project.
Kevin	Low	High	He may be bored. Let him know how the project will help him.

Project Charter Example from SAIC (http://www.saic-frederick.com/)

The project chapter should include : Project Title, Project Duration Time, Budget Information, Project Manager Information (who), Project Objectives and Success Criteria (What you need to obtain), Approach to success,Risk Foresee, Signatures of key stakeholders and their comments. It should be short,clear and reviewed by your team members.

Here are the links in this blog to read about other process groups outputs:

Planning process groups outputs.

Executing process groups outputs.

Monitor and Controlling process groups outputs.

Closing process groups outputs.

The differences between a schema relation & a relational database schema. What are the relational keys ?

What is a schema relation ?

A relation is a table,it has attributes (columns) and tuples(rows). A schema relation is a set of relation name (table name) and attributes name. There could be the datatype of the columns.

For example : Courses (courseID: integer,courseName:char).

What is a relational database schema ?

A relational database schema is a set of tables and relationships that make up a relational database.

For example :

Course (courseID,courseName)

Student (studentID,studentName,studentPhone,courseID).

So, a relational database schema can be seen as a set of schema relations and their relationships.

There are no duplicate tuples within a relation. Therefore, we need relational keys to uniquely identify each tuple in a relation. Some type of relational keys are explained below.

Candidate key is an attribute or a set of attributes that uniquely identifies a tuple in a relation. Consider the Student relation above, studentName or studentPhone can not be a candidate key because there could be more than one student with the same name or using the same phone number. In this case, we can use studentName and studentPhone (a key consist of more than one attributes called a composite key) or studentID as a candidate key.

Primary key is the candidate key that is selected to uniquely identify tuples within a relation. With the Student relation,we selected the candidate key studentID to be the primary key,and the composite key consist of studentName and studentPhone will be a alternate key.

To ensure the data in database is accurate,there must be integrity contrainsts . And there are two principal integrity contrainsts for the relational model.

The first one is the entity integrity applies to a primary key. It states that an attribute of a primary key can not be null in a base relation . Why on earth ? If we allow null in any part of a primary key,that means, we do not need these parts of the primary key,so why we include them in the primary key.

The second one is the referential integrity applies to the foreign key . If a foreign key exists in a relation, either foreign key value must match a candidate key value of some tuples in its home relation or the foreign key value must be wholly null . Consider this relational database schema :

Course (courseID,courseName)

Student (studentID,studentName,studentPhone,courseID)

In this case ,courseID is the candidate key in Course and foreign key in Student. Unless there is already a record for courseID ID11, it means that the course ID11 exists, it should not be possible to create a student with courseID ID11. However, we can insert a student with a NULL courseID,because that student has not followed any course yet.

What a base relation and a view is .

A base relation is a conceptual level relation.

A view is a virtual, derived relation from one or more base relation.

Data modification can be done in a base relation,not a view.

CourseID	courseName
ID00	ABC
ID01	DEF

studentID	studentName	studentPhone	courseID
S1	Van	84 909 072 064	ID00
S2	Paul	1 800 1999
S3	Dean	1800 1901	ID01

Two Base Relations : Course & Student

studentID	studentName	studentPhone	courseID	courseName
S1	Van	84 909 072 064	ID00	ABC
S3	Dean	1 800 1901	ID01	DEF

A View made of two base relations : course & student