Project Managers Tailor Frameworks for Flexibility and Outcomes
PMBOK v8 Definition
Project managers should tailor the appropriate framework to enable flexibility and consistently produce positive outcomes within the project’s life cycle context. The tailoring process is driven by the guiding project management principles, organizational values, and organizational culture. Life cycle flexibility includes selecting the development approach or mix of approaches, identifying the types of processes and activities that should be performed, and adjusting the various attributes of an activity, phase, or process.
Why It Matters for the Exam
This concept appears frequently in situational and application-based questions where the PMI exam tests your ability to determine when and how to adapt project management approaches. Questions often present scenarios with unique project constraints (industry, culture, regulations) and ask you to select the most appropriate tailoring action or recognize why a standard approach must be modified.
Key Points to Remember (for the exam)
- Primary Purpose: Tailoring enables flexibility to meet or exceed the project’s target objectives while protecting and enhancing the project’s value proposition
- Three Flexibility Actions: (1) Selecting the development approach or mix of approaches, (2) Identifying types of processes and activities to perform, (3) Adjusting attributes of an activity, phase, or process (name, duration, entrance criteria, exit criteria)
- Drivers of Tailoring: Guiding project management principles, organizational values, and organizational culture
- Environmental Factors: Industry, culture, regulations determine what is suitable for a given environment
- No Prescription: PMBOK v8 recognizes that no publication can capture every tool, technique, process, or practice that project teams might use
- Process Adaptation: The 40 nonprescriptive processes can be adapted to varied approaches, life cycles, and environments
- Life Cycle Determination: If no standard life cycle exists, project managers and project teams should determine the best life cycle for each project
Typical PMI Exam Example
A project manager is assigned to a construction project in a country with strict regulatory requirements and a culture that values hierarchical decision-making. The organization has no standard project life cycle. What should the project manager do first?
Correct approach: Determine the best life cycle for this specific project by considering the environmental factors (industry regulations, culture) and tailoring the framework to enable flexibility while producing positive outcomes within the project’s life cycle context.
PMI Exam Traps
- Trap: Thinking tailoring means using every PMBOK process → Reality: Tailoring means selecting only the processes and activities appropriate for the specific project environment
- Trap: Assuming the organization always prescribes the life cycle → Reality: If no standard life cycle exists, the project team determines the best life cycle
- Trap: Confusing tailoring with customization of deliverables → Reality: Tailoring applies to the project management approach, life cycle, processes, and activity attributes
- Trap: Believing sustainability considerations are optional in tailoring → Reality: Sustainability broadens the orientation of project management by considering broader time orientations and more stakeholders (sponsors, project team, all influential stakeholders, community, society)
Important PMI Connections
| Related Concept | Relationship Type | Exam Attention Point |
|---|---|---|
| Project Life Cycle | Framework for tailoring | Tailoring determines the life cycle type (predictive, adaptive, hybrid) and phase structure (sequential, transitional, overlapping) |
| Development Approaches | Selection output of tailoring | Tailoring includes selecting the development approach or mix of approaches |
| Performance Domains | Application context | Tailoring considerations are inserted into each of the seven performance domains |
| Environmental Factors | Input to tailoring | Industry, culture, and regulations determine what framework is suitable |
| Project Management Principles | Guiding driver | Tailoring is driven by guiding project management principles and organizational values |
Quick Review Questions
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A project manager is working in a highly regulated pharmaceutical environment. The organization has a standard predictive life cycle. What three areas of flexibility should the project manager consider when tailoring?
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What drives the tailoring process according to PMBOK v8? (Name three elements)
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When no standard project life cycle exists, who is responsible for determining the best life cycle for the project?
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A project team needs to adjust a phase duration and modify its exit criteria. Is this an example of tailoring? Why or why not?
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How does sustainability broaden the orientation of project management in the context of tailoring?
PMBOK v8 Reference
Section 4 - Project Life Cycle (particularly subsections on Project Phases, Development Approaches, and Tailoring Considerations)
Preface and Introduction sections addressing tailoring guidance and the 40 nonprescriptive processes
Figure 3-8 - Sustainability Broadens the Orientation of Project Management