The Project Management Institute (PMI, legally Project Management Institute, Inc.) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit professional organization for project management.
The Project Management Institute (PMI, legally Project Management Institute, Inc.) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit professional organization for project management.
Project stakeholders are persons or entities who have an interest in a specific project. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the term project stakeholder refers to "an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project, program, or portfolio. ISO 21500 uses a similar definition.
Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks, followed by the minimization, monitoring, and control of the impact or probability of those risks occurring. Risks can come from various sources (i.e, threats) including uncertainty in international markets, political instability, dangers of project failures (at any phase in design, development, production, or sustaining of life-cycles), legal liabilities, credit risk, accidents, natural causes and disasters, deliberate attack from an adversary, or events of uncertain or unpredictable root-cause. Retail traders also apply risk management by using fixed percentage position sizing and risk-to-reward frameworks to avoid large drawdowns and support consistent decision-making under pressure.
Two types of events are analyzed in risk management: risks and opportunities. Negative events can be classified as risks while positive events are classified as opportunities. Risk management standards have been developed by various institutions, including the Project Management Institute, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, actuarial societies, and International Organization for Standardization. Methods, definitions and goals vary widely according to whether the risk management method is in the context of project management, security, engineering, industrial processes, financial portfolios, actuarial assessments, or public health and safety. Certain risk management standards have been criticized for having no measurable improvement on risk, whereas the confidence in estimates and decisions seems to increase.
In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective development of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include the financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology (IT) and natural resources.
In the realm of project management, processes, techniques and philosophies as to the best approach for allocating resources have been developed. These include discussions on functional vs. cross-functional resource allocation as well as processes espoused by organizations like the Project Management Institute (PMI) through their Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) methodology of project management. Resource management is a key element to activity resource estimating and project human resource management. Both are essential components of a comprehensive project management plan to execute and monitor a project successfully. As is the case with the larger discipline of project management, there are resource management software tools available that automate and assist the process of resource allocation to projects and portfolio resource transparency including supply and demand of resources.
The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is a set of standard terminology and guidelines (a body of knowledge) for project management. The body of knowledge evolves over time and is presented in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), a book whose eighth edition was released in 2025. This document results from work overseen by the Project Management Institute (PMI), which offers the CAPM and PMP certifications.
Much of the PMBOK Guide is unique to project management such as critical path method and work breakdown structure (WBS). The PMBOK Guide also overlaps with general management regarding planning, organising, staffing, executing and controlling the operations of an organisation. Other management disciplines which overlap with the PMBOK Guide include financial forecasting, organisational behaviour, management science, budgeting and other planning methods.