There are 49 named processes in the classic project management framework — a full playbook of activities that take a project from “someone has an idea” to “the work is done and signed off.” If you are studying for the PMP® exam, you will meet every one of them. If you manage projects for a living, you already run most of them, whether or not you use their official names.
This cheat sheet puts all 49 on one page: each process, the process group it belongs to, its knowledge area, and a one-line plain-English summary of what it actually does. Every process name links to a full deep dive with its inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs, plus how it connects to the processes around it.
How the 49 processes are organized
Every process sits at the intersection of two classifications, and understanding that grid is worth more than memorizing any list:
- Initiating — 2 processes
- Planning — 24 processes
- Executing — 10 processes
- Monitoring and Controlling — 12 processes
- Closing — 1 process
Those are the five process groups — they describe when in the project lifecycle the work happens. The second axis is the ten knowledge areas — Integration, Scope, Schedule, Cost, Quality, Resource, Communications, Risk, Procurement, and Stakeholder — which describe what discipline each process belongs to. Every process has exactly one home in each axis: Develop Project Charter is an Initiating process (when) in Integration (what).
One trap worth avoiding early: process groups are not project phases. Monitoring and Controlling runs alongside the other groups for the whole project, and in anything iterative you will revisit Planning many times. The groups classify the work; they don’t sequence the calendar.
The cheat sheet: all 49 processes by process group
Jump straight to a group:
- Initiating (2)
- Planning (24)
- Executing (10)
- Monitoring and Controlling (12)
- Closing (1)
Initiating — 2 processes
Just two processes, but nothing legitimate happens without them: the project gets its mandate, and the people who can make or break it get identified while there is still time to act on it.
| # | Process | Knowledge Area | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Develop Project Charter | Integration | Formally authorizes the project and gives the project manager the authority to apply resources. |
| 2 | Identify Stakeholders | Stakeholder | Identifies the people, groups, and organizations affected by the project and records their interests, influence, and impact in the stakeholder register. |
Planning — 24 processes
Half the framework lives here — 24 processes that turn an authorized idea into something executable. The pattern to notice: almost every knowledge area starts its planning with a “Plan … Management” process that decides how that discipline will be run, before any detailed planning happens.
| # | Process | Knowledge Area | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Develop Project Management Plan | Integration | Defines how the project will be executed, monitored, and controlled by integrating all the subsidiary plans into one coherent document. |
| 4 | Plan Scope Management | Scope | Creates the scope and requirements management plans that define how scope will be defined, validated, and controlled. |
| 5 | Collect Requirements | Scope | Determines, documents, and manages stakeholder needs and requirements to meet objectives, producing the requirements documentation and traceability matrix. |
| 6 | Define Scope | Scope | Develops a detailed description of the project and product — the project scope statement — that says explicitly what is and is not included. |
| 7 | Create WBS | Scope | Subdivides project deliverables and work into smaller, manageable components, producing the scope baseline. |
| 8 | Plan Schedule Management | Schedule | Establishes the policies and procedures for planning, developing, and controlling the project schedule, captured in the schedule management plan. |
| 9 | Define Activities | Schedule | Identifies and documents the specific activities needed to produce each work package, producing the activity list, attributes, and milestones. |
| 10 | Sequence Activities | Schedule | Identifies and documents the dependencies among activities to arrange them in the order they must be performed, producing the project schedule network diagrams. |
| 11 | Estimate Activity Durations | Schedule | Estimates how long each activity will take given the resources assigned, producing duration estimates and the basis behind them. |
| 12 | Develop Schedule | Schedule | Analyzes activity sequences, durations, resources, and constraints to create the schedule model and the approved schedule baseline. |
| 13 | Plan Cost Management | Cost | Defines how costs will be estimated, budgeted, managed, and controlled, captured in the cost management plan. |
| 14 | Estimate Costs | Cost | Develops an approximation of the monetary resources needed to complete the work, producing cost estimates and their basis. |
| 15 | Determine Budget | Cost | Aggregates the estimated costs of activities into an authorized cost baseline and sets project funding requirements. |
| 16 | Plan Quality Management | Quality | Identifies the quality requirements and standards for the project and its deliverables and documents how they will be met, producing the quality management plan and metrics. |
| 17 | Plan Resource Management | Resource | Defines how to estimate, acquire, manage, and release the team and physical resources, producing the resource management plan and team charter. |
| 18 | Estimate Activity Resources | Resource | Estimates the team resources and the type and quantity of materials, equipment, and supplies each activity needs, producing resource requirements and the resource breakdown structure. |
| 19 | Plan Communications Management | Communications | Develops an approach for project communications based on stakeholder needs and available assets, producing the communications management plan. |
| 20 | Plan Risk Management | Risk | Defines how to conduct risk management activities for the project, producing the risk management plan. |
| 21 | Identify Risks | Risk | Identifies individual project risks and sources of overall project risk, documenting them in the risk register and risk report. |
| 22 | Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis | Risk | Prioritizes individual project risks for further action by assessing their probability and impact, updating the risk register. |
| 23 | Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis | Risk | Numerically analyzes the combined effect of identified risks on overall project objectives, producing quantified exposure and forecasts. |
| 24 | Plan Risk Responses | Risk | Develops options and actions to address individual and overall project risk, recording owned responses and triggering change requests. |
| 25 | Plan Procurement Management | Procurement | Documents procurement decisions, specifies the approach, and identifies potential sellers, producing the procurement management plan and supporting documents. |
| 26 | Plan Stakeholder Engagement | Stakeholder | Develops approaches to involve stakeholders based on their needs, expectations, and impact, producing the stakeholder engagement plan. |
Executing — 10 processes
Where the budget actually gets spent. These ten processes produce the deliverables and — just as importantly — run the team, the communications, and the stakeholder engagement that keep the work moving.
| # | Process | Knowledge Area | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | Direct and Manage Project Work | Integration | Leads and performs the work defined in the project management plan and implements approved changes, producing deliverables and work performance data. |
| 28 | Manage Project Knowledge | Integration | Uses existing knowledge and creates new knowledge to achieve objectives and help the organization learn, producing and updating the lessons learned register. |
| 29 | Manage Quality | Quality | Translates the quality management plan into executable activities and audits the work, producing quality reports and surfacing improvements. |
| 30 | Acquire Resources | Resource | Obtains the team members, facilities, equipment, materials, and other resources needed to do the work, producing resource assignments and calendars. |
| 31 | Develop Team | Resource | Improves competencies, interaction, and the overall team environment to boost project performance, producing team performance assessments. |
| 32 | Manage Team | Resource | Tracks team member performance, gives feedback, resolves issues, and manages changes to optimize performance. |
| 33 | Manage Communications | Communications | Ensures timely and appropriate collection, creation, distribution, and storage of project information, producing the project communications. |
| 34 | Implement Risk Responses | Risk | Executes the agreed-upon risk response plans so risk is actually addressed, not just documented. |
| 35 | Conduct Procurements | Procurement | Obtains seller responses, selects sellers, and awards contracts, producing selected sellers and agreements. |
| 36 | Manage Stakeholder Engagement | Stakeholder | Communicates and works with stakeholders to meet needs, address issues, and foster appropriate involvement. |
Monitoring and Controlling — 12 processes
Twelve processes that run alongside everything else, comparing what is happening against what was planned and feeding corrections back in. Most of them pair off against a planning process: Plan Quality Management plans it, Control Quality checks it.
| # | Process | Knowledge Area | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 37 | Monitor and Control Project Work | Integration | Tracks, reviews, and reports overall project progress against the plan, producing work performance reports and change requests. |
| 38 | Perform Integrated Change Control | Integration | Reviews, approves, and manages changes to deliverables, baselines, and the plan, producing approved change requests. |
| 39 | Validate Scope | Scope | Formalizes acceptance of completed deliverables with the customer or sponsor, producing accepted deliverables. |
| 40 | Control Scope | Scope | Monitors the status of project and product scope and manages changes to the scope baseline, producing work performance information and change requests. |
| 41 | Control Schedule | Schedule | Monitors schedule status, measures progress against the baseline, and manages schedule changes, producing schedule forecasts. |
| 42 | Control Costs | Cost | Monitors project costs, measures spending against the cost baseline, and manages changes to the budget, producing cost forecasts. |
| 43 | Control Quality | Quality | Monitors and records the results of quality activities to assess performance and confirm deliverables are correct and complete, producing verified deliverables. |
| 44 | Control Resources | Resource | Ensures physical resources are available as planned and monitors actual versus planned utilization, taking corrective action. |
| 45 | Monitor Communications | Communications | Ensures the information needs of the project and its stakeholders are met by checking that communications are working, producing work performance information. |
| 46 | Monitor Risks | Risk | Monitors implemented risk responses, tracks identified risks, and identifies new ones, keeping risk decisions based on current information. |
| 47 | Control Procurements | Procurement | Manages procurement relationships, monitors contract performance, makes changes and corrections, and closes out contracts, producing closed procurements. |
| 48 | Monitor Stakeholder Engagement | Stakeholder | Monitors stakeholder relationships and adjusts strategies to keep engagement effective, producing work performance information. |
Closing — 1 process
One process — but skip it and the project never formally ends: deliverables are accepted, contracts are closed out, lessons are archived, and the team is released.
| # | Process | Knowledge Area | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 49 | Close Project or Phase | Integration | Finalizes all activities to formally complete the project or phase, producing the final report and transitioning the product to operations. |
How to study the 49 processes
- Learn the grid, not the list. Being able to place any process in its group and knowledge area is far more useful — on the exam and in real work — than reciting all 49 in order. The grid also makes the names guessable: most follow a Plan / Manage-or-Direct / Monitor-or-Control pattern within their knowledge area.
- Follow the artifacts. The processes chain together through their documents: the charter authorizes the plan, the plan drives the work, work performance data flows into the controlling processes, and change requests flow back. Trace one deliverable end to end and the sequence stops feeling arbitrary.
- Understand ITTO logic instead of memorizing tables. Every process is defined by its inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs. Nobody can (or should) memorize them all — but if you understand why a process needs what it needs, you can derive most ITTO answers. Each linked deep dive on this site shows the process’s ITTOs and which neighbouring processes produce and consume them.
- Drill one group at a time. The five group hubs collect their processes in one place — start with the two Initiating processes and work forward.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to memorize all 49 processes for the PMP exam?
Not verbatim. The modern exam is situational — it tests whether you know what a project manager should do next, not whether you can recite tables. But you do need to know which group and knowledge area each process lives in and what its key outputs are, because that is how you recognize where you are in a scenario question. The grid above is exactly that knowledge.
What is the difference between process groups and knowledge areas?
Process groups classify processes by when the work happens in the project lifecycle (initiating through closing). Knowledge areas classify the same processes by subject matter (scope, cost, risk, and so on). Every process belongs to exactly one of each, which is why the whole framework fits in one 49-cell grid.
Which process group has the most processes?
Planning, by a wide margin: 24 of the 49 processes — nearly half the framework. Executing has 10, Monitoring and Controlling has 12, while Initiating (2) and Closing (1) are the smallest. The lopsidedness is the framework’s core message: most project failures are planning failures that surface later.
What are ITTOs?
Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs — the three-part definition every process comes with. Inputs are what the process consumes (documents, data, agreements), tools & techniques are how it does the work (expert judgment, analysis methods, meetings), and outputs are what it produces for other processes to consume. The output-to-input chains are what stitch the 49 processes into one connected system.
Ready to go deeper? Browse all 49 processes organized by group, or start at the very beginning with Develop Project Charter — process #1, where every project legally begins.