The concept of a Deliverable is one of the most important concepts in the project management profession. It is also an important concept for PMP Certification exam takers to understand.
We will go over the following topics in-depth in this article:
What exactly is a deliverable?
Deliverables of various kinds
What happens after a deliverable is created?
Let’s take a look at deliverables in project management.
What exactly is a deliverable?
A deliverable is any product, service, or result that must be completed in order for a project to be completed.
Some projects necessitate the development of capabilities in order to be completed. These capabilities are also referred to as deliverables. Assume, for example, that we manufacture the iPhone. Before we can manufacture the product, such as the iPhone, we may need to develop a new manufacturing technique in our project. In this case, the capability developed by the team can also be considered a deliverable. Deliverables are an important output of the Direct and Manage Project Execution knowledge area in the Project Integration Management knowledge area, according to the PMBOK® Guide.
The authors of the current PMBOK® Guide, as well as many other project management professionals worldwide, believe that the Work Breakdown Structure should be based on these project deliverables rather than the tasks required to create these deliverables. These deliverables are further broken down into smaller pieces while creating a Work Breakdown Structure. This decomposition process is repeated until all deliverables are small enough to be considered work packages.
Deliverables Types
Internal deliverables and external deliverables are the two most common types of deliverables.
Deliverables for Internal Use
Internal deliverables are typically deliverables that help a project run smoothly but are not a component of the product that end users would like to see. They are deliverables created internally by the project. Internal deliverables include project management, configuration management, training, and testing.
Deliverables from Outside Sources
External deliverables are typically those that the project provides to its users or clients. An external deliverable could be an IT system and its subsystems, or the resulting organizational transition and benefits from a project to reduce process turnaround time.
Furthermore, project management professionals are known to categorize these deliverables as follows.
Project Deliverables: These are typically deliverables for external stakeholders.
Management plans, scheduling, and budgeting, as well as project artifacts, are examples of planning deliverables.
Status reports, meetings, reviews, and so on are examples of activity deliverables.
What Happens After a Deliverable Is Created?
After a deliverable is created, it goes through the Perform Quality Control and Verifies Scope processes until it meets specifications for completeness and correctness.
The deliverables are inspected, measured, and tested during the Perform Quality Control process to ensure that everything produced meets the quality standards.
The deliverables are compared to the documented scope during the Verify Scope process to ensure that everything was completed. This comparison may be repeated several times throughout the project’s lifespan. The Verify Scope process results in formal written acceptance of deliverables by the appropriate stakeholders.
A deliverable is thus any product, service, or result that is required to complete a project. These deliverables serve as the foundation for a work breakdown structure. Deliverables are typically divided into two types: internal deliverables and external deliverables.
