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PMI website defines it as:
Progressive elaboration, is defined by PMBOK*as
“continuously improving and detailing a plan as more detailed and specific information and more accurate estimates become available as the project progresses, and thereby producing more accurate and complete plans that result from the successive iterations of the planning process”.
Progressive Elaboration
- this concept is key to the entire PMI framework. It fundamentally states that
you cannot come up with a definitive estimate for timeline and budget at the very start of a project.
Why? The reason is that there are many unknowns and very little analysis has been done at the
beginning of the project. As the project team dives into the analysis, consults with subject matter
experts, and begins to define the details of the project - only then can more accurate estimates be
created.
The greater the number of the unknowns that exist in a project, the more a progressive elaboration is
required to ensure project success.
