Fort Point Group adheres to the code of conduct and standards of the Project Management Institute, an international body of over 200,000 professionals in 125 countries. See http://pmi.org.

The overall purpose of formal Project Management is to manage successfully the competing constraints of Scope, Cost, Time, Quality, Risk, and Customer Satisfaction in the completion of a temporary endeavor leading toward the production of a unique product or result.

The Project Management Process consists of five process groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing. The professional Project Manager (PM) must have the authority and take the responsibility to complete all the process groups to produce the required result.

 
Before starting a project, the Fort Point PM needs to know the nature of the business opportunity, the overall goals, the likely stakeholders, assumptions, risks, conflicts, existing contracts, and any external conditions that would affect the outcome. The Project Charter and Preliminary Scope Statement are re-iterated until the PM and sponsors agree on the work to be done and the sponsors agree to fund the project. Once agreed, the Planning for the project can begin.

 
In the Planning process group, Fort Point leads the preparation of separate management plans for scope, time, cost, quality, staffing, communications, risk, and procurement. Each management plan is tailored to the specific needs of the project and is consolidated into the Project Management Plan. The PMP must be as complete as possible before the Execution process group starts. The most critical element of the PMP is the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) which subdivides the project into manageable pieces called “work packages”, which are further subdivided into schedule “activities.” Activities cannot be logically subdivided further, can be realistically and confidently estimated, have meaningful conclusions and deliverables, and can be completed without interruption.

 
In the Executing and Monitoring & Controlling process groups, the Fort Point PM leads the team in the execution of the Project Management Plan as approved, seeks out defects, measures the project progress against the Performance Measurement Baselines, determines variances and recommends changes and corrective actions, implements approved changes, holds progress meetings with stakeholders, and manages the procurement process.

 
In the Closing process group, the Fort Point PM develops closing procedures, completes contract closure, confirms that all work has been done to requirements, gains formal acceptance of the product, prepares final performance reports, updates lessons learned data base, hands off completed project to on-going management, and releases all resources acquired for the project.