Project Integration Management comprises the activities, processes, documents and tools necessary to define, plan, produce deliverables, monitor and control, manage change requirements and carry out phase or project closure.
1. Prepare the Project Charter.
The Project Charter (link article project charter) is the document that authorizes the realization of the project and commits the necessary resources to implement it.
2. Prepare the Project Management Plan.
Defines and implements a Project Management Plan that will define how the project will be executed, monitored, controlled and closed.
In preparing the plan, it is necessary to take into account elements that may affect the development of the project, such as: Government standards and regulations, policies, culture and management style of the company in which the project is developed, available infrastructure and management policies of personnel. The base information to prepare the Project Management Plan is ready with all these previously mentioned and the information contained in the Project Charter.
The project management plan integrates the following plans:
- Scope management plan: This explains how the project scope will be planned, validated and controlled.
- Time management plan: This explains how the project plan will be planned and controlled in time.
- Cost management plan: This explains how the project budget will be planned and controlled.
- Quality management plan: This explains how the quality management will be planned and how the control and quality assurance of the project will be managed.
- Human Resources Management Plan: This explains how the project’s human team will be managed, evaluated and kept motivated.
- Communications plan: This explains how communications will be planned, managed and controlled within the project.
- Risk management plan: This explains how risk management will be planned and how project risks will be controlled.
- Procurement management plan: This explains how all the necessary processes and activities will be planned, controlled and closed, to guarantee that the resources, products and services required by the project are available on time, with the required quality and within the costs defined in the project budget.
- Stakeholders management plan: This explains how the stakeholder management will be planned and how the strategies will be defined, implemented and controlled to increase the favorableness of the project among those stakeholders.
The project management plan also includes the project process improvement plan, the requirements management plan, the project base budget and the project baseline schedule.
The Project Management Plan is not a static document so it must be periodically updated as the project requires.
3. Directs, manages, monitors and controls the project work.
The objective of a project is to produce products or services that the sponsoring organization requires. These are known as deliverables. Therefore, once it has been defined that a project exists and the necessary resources have been assigned to carry it out (Project Charter) and it has been defined how the different elements of the project will be planned, monitored and controlled (Project Management Plan) it is necessary to carry out the tasks, activities and work packages necessary to meet the project objectives and produce the agreed deliverables.
Among others, the following tasks must be done:
- Keep the work team motivated and focused on the production of deliverables on time, within the planned costs and with the planned quality.
- Obtain and manage all the necessary resources so that they are available on time and with the required quality.
- Implement the methodologies and standards according to the project plan.
- Establish and control communications with the project team and both internal and external stakeholders.
- Generate information on the performance of the project associated with compliance in the production of deliverables, schedule, costs, and quality in order to produce reports that allow to establish the status of the project, detect deviations and implement actions that allow to keep the project under control.
- In the event that new requirements are detected, these must be submitted as change requests to be authorized or denied by the change control committee. For the changes that are approved, it is necessary to include the new deliverables associated with them within the scope and define the resources and the time necessary to complete the tasks. This should be reflected in the documents associated with scope management, costs, time, procurement and quality of the project.
- Monitor identified risks, detect new risks, define actions to manage risks and close risks that are considered not relevant under the conditions of the project.
- Analyze the project’s requirements for goods and services and coordinate with the suppliers so that they are delivered on time and with the required quality.
- Analyze the attitude towards the project of the different stakeholders and carry out actions aimed at improving their attitude towards the project.
- Collect and document lessons learned.
- Identify, analyze, authorize and implement improvements in the project processes.
- Document the changes made to the Project Management Plan and its associated documents.
- The acceptance of the deliverables produced by the project should be in formal documents such as reports signed by those who receive the deliverable and according to the criteria defined in the deliverable acceptance procedure.
4. Close the phase or project.
Once all the deliverables of the phase or project have been prepared, a formal closing takes place.
This closing can be done in a phase or project closing meeting in which the balance of the deliverables prepared and accepted is presented. At the end of the meeting, the closing must be formalized by signing a phase or project closing act.
Author: Juan David Castañeda Sánchez
About the Author:
Mr. Castañeda is an Electrical Engineer from the National University of Colombia and a Business Specialist from the ICESI University. He has more than twenty years of experience in structuring, selecting suppliers, contracting and managing projects in public sector entities and private companies in Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.
For more information please email: info@gprycon.com
