The Define Activities process is the next step in the Time Management knowledge area, following the Plan Schedule Management process. Time Management is an important component of the PMP exam questions. If you are enrolled in PMP exam training, you will be able to get detailed information about this knowledge area as well as its processes.
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Let’s look at the outputs and show you how they are used during the project’s life cycle.
What is the Define Activities Process?
The project team must perform a set of activities in order to complete a project. According to PMP Training, Define Activities refers to the process of identifying and documenting specific actions that will be taken to produce project deliverables.
Using the scope of the project, the activities that must be completed to achieve the goals and objectives are identified during the define activities process. These activities can usually be completed in a matter of hours or days. These activities will be done by project team members so they should be as small and manageable as possible.
To make it easier to estimate, schedule, monitor, and manage work packages, they are broken down into activities. Work packages include a small amount of work or interim deliverables. Activities are only a small part of each work package. You can complete the work package by completing all activities. The best way to manage, coordinate and estimate a project is to break it down into activities. Each activity will be small, such as the installation of a computer or the development of a screen. These activities will also make assignees more confident in estimation.
Two Important Concepts
Two important concepts are about Define Activites. It is important to highlight these two concepts.
Scope Management knowledge allows for the creation of work packages. However, these work packages can be turned into activities by the Time Management knowledge area during the Define Activities process.
Scope baseline is necessary to define activities within a project. Scope baseline includes the project scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary. Scope statement provides high-level information about project scope. WBS displays the work and deliverable hierarchy for the project. WBS dictionary provides details about the work packages. This information is very helpful when you are defining activities within a work package.
The project team assists in the definition of activities. The project team will carry out the project activities. Based on the project scope and the WBS-described work packages, they will determine the activities required to complete the work package.
What are the outputs of these activities?
Define Activities produces three main outputs. What are they?
Your entry was not saved. Please try again. We have sent you links! You should have already received an email from masterofproject.com. If you have not received an email from us, please check your spam folders. You can also add masterofproject.com on the safe senders list to ensure you receive our emails. Activity List is the primary output of Define Activities. The Activity List contains the activities required to complete the project scope. This list includes activity names such as install database, configure database, execute creation scripts, etc.
Activity attributes is another output from the Define Activities process. It complements the activity listing. Activity attributes highlight the WBS ID of the activity as well as predecessors and successors to it, leads and lags.