Define activities is part of the PMI's time management knowledge area and in the planning process group. It is described in section 6.2 of the fifth edition of the PMBOK. Once the schedule management plan has been developed, the next step is to identify and document the activities necessary to produce the project deliverables. Later processes organize and order those activities into a schedule.
The define activities process is defined in the PMBOK fifth edition, section 6.2.
According to the PMBOK, this activity has the following characteristics:
Related: PMI processes, activity, milestone, sequence activities
This process is crucial to many of the other project management processes. It is worth putting extra effort into getting the activities well defined in the initial pass. However, it may be necessary to revisit this process multiple times, especially for a large or long-term project where lessons learned along the way need to be incorporated back into the plans.
Heuristics (rules of thumb) for defining activities:
- activities should be no shorter than 1/2 day in duration
- This keeps the activities from getting too detailed. Also, each activity will need further action, such as defining and tracking it. It does not make sense to spend more time defining the activity than performing it.
- activities should be no longer than two reporting cycles in duration
- Longer activities should be broken down so that if their completion is delayed, it will not have too much of an impact on the schedule before it is noticed.
Some organizations may have different or additional rules for the size or level to breakdown the work packages into activities.
External links[]
- PM Exam SmartNotes: What Do You Need To Define Activities from Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) by Shivshanker Shenoy
- Firebrand: 6.2 Define Activities
- 4squareviews: 5th Edition PMBOK® Guide—Chapter 6: Process 6.2 Define Activities by Jerome Rowley. Posted on March 28, 2013.