Project Management Practices and ITIL Practices
This domain tests how the project management practice connects to the wider ITIL practice set, and how ITIL structures practice guidance: purpose, practice success factors, processes, the four dimensions, and capability assessment. Expect questions on which practice owns which decision.
The practice itself
Its purpose is to ensure projects are delivered successfully through planning, delegation, monitoring and control. Practice success factors typically cover strategic alignment and authorization, planning and delivery to requirements, risk/issue/change control, stakeholder engagement, and benefit realization. Capability is assessed against these factors, not against loyalty to one method.
Key interfaces
- Portfolio management: selects, prioritizes and funds the work.
- Risk management: sets appetite and treatment approach; the project keeps its own risk register.
- Change enablement: authorizes changes to live services, separate from project change logs.
- Release and deployment management: moves products into production.
- Service financial management: budgets and cost tracking.
- Knowledge management: lessons, documentation, transition of knowledge.
- Relationship management and supplier management: stakeholders and contracts.
- Continual improvement: improvement register and post-project lessons.
Worked example
A project is ready to cut over to production. The project's change log records scope changes, but it does not authorize deployment. The team raises a change request through change enablement, aligns the release plan, updates the risk register, confirms the supplier is on standby, and logs lessons for the improvement register.
Traps
Treating project management as a replacement for other practices; conflating a practice with a process; using the project change log as permission to deploy; assuming risk management stops at project closure.