Project plan

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A project plan, according to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), is: "...a formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions and decisions, facilitate communication among project stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost, and schedule baselines. A project plan may be sumarized or detailed."^[1]

The latest edition of the PMBOK (v6) uses the term project charter to refer to the contract that the project sponsor and project manager use to agree on the initial vision of the project (scope, baseline, resources, objectives, etc.) at a high level. In the PMI methodology described in the PMBOK v5, the project charter and the project management plan are the two most important documents for describing a project during the initiation and planning phases.

PRINCE2 defines a project plan as:

"...a statement of how and when a project's objectives are to be achieved, by showing the major products, milestones, activities and resources required on the project."

The project manager creates the project management plan following input from the project team and key project stakeholders. The plan should be agreed and approved by at least the project team and its key stakeholders.

Many project management processes are mentioned in PMBOK® Guide, but determining which processes need to be used based on the needs of the project which is called Tailoring is part of developing the project management plan.^[2]