Currently, every organization is implementing the latest and effective project management methodologies to ensure that their projects and processes are managed consistently across the entire company. Speaking of consistency, the emergence of organizational business needs, individual preferences, and team differences will result in making decisions that aren’t beneficial to the company’s long-term goals. In case such issues arise, the organization has to ensure that a high level of integration is implemented in the project management practices to achieve their long-term strategic goals.
Integration Management is the process, where the Project Manager, is handed the authority to monitor and coordinate the functions and activities taking place at various levels of the organization. The integration is to ensure that the team works towards completing the given project by making sure that it meets the scope, budget and time. Effective execution of integration management is regarded to be a critical success factor for the Project Manager.
Project Integration Management is all about sustaining stability in all areas of a project like; time, scope, cost, quality, human resource, communication, risk, procurement, stakeholder, among others. These are interconnected processes and cannot be carried out by a single team. It’s a vital knowledge area and highly valued aspect in the PMI. It’s a process that involves constant monitoring of the procedures undertaken during the life cycle of the project. One crucial feature of project integration management is that it entirely focuses on a given project keeping a watchful eye right from initiation until the completion of the project.
The project integration management has a set of control access points that are undertaken by the Project Manager and are as follows:-
Initiating: The official authorization of the project is handed over during the initiating process group stage. It’s a process where the Project Manager receives the necessary information on how to begin the project. The outputs of the initiation process group include creating a project charter, identifying stakeholders and their high-level needs as well as gaining knowledge of the approaches that are necessary for managing those acquired stakeholders.
Business need
Objectives of the project
Product Scope and Project Scope
Budget information
Schedule information
Information on the completion of the project
Associated risk information
Project acceptance criteria
Name of the Signatory authority & Project Manager
Authoritative power of the project manager
Pre-assigned team members
Second on the list is the Planning Process Group. Planning is a stage where the Project Manager creates a blueprint for the project which defines the project objectives, milestones, schedules and initial budget required for the project. It’s considered to be a highly recommended process, as it measures all the knowledge areas of the project and helps in creating a roadmap that in turn will assist in completing the project successfully. All these processes are to be activated into a cohesive whole to prepare a final project management plan.
The planning process group has a list of processes listed under it, and they are as follows:-
| Develop Project Management Plan | Determine Budget |
|---|---|
| Plan Scope Management | Plan Quality Management |
| Collect Requirements | Plan Resource Management |
| Define Scope | Estimate Activity Resources |
| Create WBS | Plan Communications Management |
| Plan Schedule Management | Plan Risk Management |
| Define Activities | Identify Risks |
| Sequence Activities | Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis |
| Estimate Activity Durations | Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis |
| Develop Schedule | Plan Risk Responses |
| Plan Cost Management | Plan Procurement Management |
| Estimate Costs | Plan Stakeholder Engagement |
The process of initiating and planning are proven worthy only with proper execution. Execution is a stage where the Project Manager needs to assure that the project deliverables and objectives meet the stakeholders’ expectations.
Here’s a list of some other processes to follow during the Executing Process stage. These processes belong to several knowledge areas ranging from Project Integration Management to Project Human Resource Management to Project Stakeholder Management.
This process addresses the skills needed to review progress and document benchmarks in the project. After successful implementation of the first three stages, the project is officially underway. Maintaining a bird’s eye view of the project performance is vital to preserving positive forward momentum.
The tasks to be covered at this stage are:
This process is mainly known for presents a detailed set of skills and knowledge directly applicable toward implementing the decisions needed to sustain the most active part of the project.
Closing Process Group is the last stage in the process of project management plan. It has equal importance as all the other processes mentioned above. The closing process group includes all the final processes required to complete a project and deliver final products and reports to the stakeholders. The critical feature of this stage is to make sure that all contractual obligations have been completely taken care from the Project Manager’s point of view.
Below is the diagram depicting the project closing process group
Close Project or Close Phase
This the phase where the project manager looks back and carefully observes the undertakings of the project from the beginning to the end. He/she has to make sure that nothing is left unturned and most importantly everything relating to the project right from small adjustments to more significant changes must be documented and accounted for to leave a lasting and positive impression.
