The four facilitating areas are human resources, risk, procurement, and communication. The remaining overarching area is integration. Integration is concerned with properly coordinating the other knowledge areas. Each knowledge area consists of a series of processes. Each process includes inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs.
Inputs are the items needed to complete the process.
The tools and techniques define what to do to the inputs. Lessons learned Figure 2. Although project management can be easily defined, it often looks like fire fighting. Managers and team members act like smoke jumpers. They parachute in on the hot spots, beat back the fire to a reasonable slow burn, and race off to fight the next flare-up.