Plan all project processes and activities required to ensure project success and to create a comprehensive set of plans to manage the project from the beginning until project termination/close.
Define the overall parameters of a project, estimate duration, and cost appropriately to each activity required to complete the project.
The project management team uses the Planning Process and its fundamental process and interactions to plan and manage a successful project for the organization. The Planning Process helps gather information from many sources with each having varying levels of completeness and confidence. The planning processes develop the project management plan. These processes also identify, define, mature the project scope, project cost, and schedule the project activities that occur within the project. As new project information is discovered, additional dependencies, requirements, risks, opportunities, assumptions, and constraints are identified or resolved. The multi-dimensional nature of project management causes repeated feedback loops for additional analysis. As more project information or characteristics are gathered and understood, follow-on actions may be required. Significant changes occurring throughout the project life cycle trigger a need to revisit one or more of the planning processes and, possibly, some of the initiating processes.
A modification to this model, referenced as the Modified Waterfall, recognizes there is a benefit to overlapping the phases to some degree, by starting the Detailed Design Sub Phase while finishing the Define Phase, for instance.