A Study of Concept Structure of PMBOK Based on Graph Theory

Abstract

One especial characteristic of the PMBOK fourth edition is that the data flow betweenprocesses is defined with the definition of individual processes. Based on relations of input andthe output during an adjacent management process, we can visualize the network structure of42 project management processes analytically.The author showed that we could estimate the density of the process flow from the networkstructure based on the relations during the process of the first proximity.However, this network structure based on relations of first proximity is not including the indirectrelationship among management processes. Therefore, it is necessary to extract a cross-sectionaldata flowchart on knowledge areas by expanding analysis range of the management pass inconsideration of a highly advanced proximity element (process).Based on this cross-sectional data flowchart, it is able to visualize a complicated managementprocessing flow. As a result, it is found that there were complementary relations between theflow by way and by no way of the project integration management knowledge area. This suggeststhat network analysis technique is effective as method to visualize the flow of the managementprocess of project.In this paper, I would like to report the example of visualization of the management processingflow of some project management knowledge areas.