Sources of Project Management Information

There are two sources of information that are used to specify content requirements for a project management database. One is the processes adopted by the PMO. These processes receive, create, and transmit information. An effective database will be able to hold all necessary information for all project management processes in a robust structure. For example, if the status reporting process states that the status report will contain current information about the scope, time, cost, issues, risk plan, and quality of the project, then the database will need to be able to receive information on all these attributes of status, link the statements to the date and time they represent, and present that information in a useful status report. The same is true for the all the inputs and outputs of every project management process.

The second source of information about project management content is the content of existing databases, project management software programs, and electronic or paper project management documents. Any information that is currently recorded needs to be evaluated. If the information is of value, then it should be included in the database.

In this section on requirements definition, the content requirements from the processes adopted by the PMO will be defined. Evaluation of existing systems will begin in this section and be used to complete the specification of content requirements in the next step, Evaluate Existing Internal Databases.