Revision Summary – Integration Management

Note: This document is only meant for revising a knowledge area of PMBoK as a preparation for the PMP exam. It does not exhaustively cover the knowledge area and in order to understand the knowledge area in depth, the reader is referred to the PMBoK guide or a suitable text book on PMBoK.

General

Integration management should be viewed as dealing with the project as a whole. A project starts with the approval of a project charter, is planned by the project manager, and the dev team execute the engineering tasks that go into making the end product or service. Tasks are allocated, tracked and monitored and changes are controlled in the integration management processes. The project is closed at the end after the acceptance by the customer.

4.1 Develop Project Charter

This is the most important process of not only the knowledge area but also the entire PMBoK. This is the process because of which the project comes into existence. A project comes into existence only if it delivers some financial or non-financial benefits to some stakeholders. This is the process that reviews the purpose of the project, ascertains the benefits of the project, fixes approximate scope, budget and timelines and sets the ball rolling.

Important ITTOs

Inputs

Project Statement of Work (SOW)

Is a narrative description of products, services or results to be developed by a project. SOW covers the business need, product scope description, strategic plan.

Business Case

A document that determines whether or not the project is worth the required investment

Agreements

Agreements are used to define initial intention of the project. They can be Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Letters of Intentions (LOIs) etc.

Tools and Techniques

None

Output

Project Charter

Is the document issued by the project initiator (sponsor) that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.

Important points to be noted

  1. The project manager is necessarily identified in this process. A PM has to be assigned necessarily latest by the project charter approval meeting.
  2. It is the responsibility of the project sponsor to develop the charter. Usually the sponsor may take the help of PM to develop it but the sponsor will then approve it.
  3. Without a project charter, no project resources are assigned to any activities. This is a very hard dependency and must be noted.

4.2 Develop project management plan

This process is just an aggregation of all the subsidiary plans such as scope management plan, schedule management plan etc. and baselines such as scope baseline, schedule baseline etc.

Apart from noting this purpose, there is not much to be understood from this process.

4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work

The main body of the project is the engineering work that is performed to create the end deliverables. In a construction project, the building layout, wiring diagrams, pipe layouts etc., construction work such as laying foundation, roof, wall construction, carpentry work etc. are all examples of engineering work that create the end deliverable which is the building.

This body work has to be allocated to resources and tracked. This allocation of engineering work is a major project management work and is carried out in this process.

It is important to note the difference between the tracking done in this process and 4.4 Monitor and Control project. In this process, it is the raw details such as task status, issues etc. that are obtained from the team members; whereas in 4.4, the PM analyses the raw information and creates projections (overall impact on project parameters), draws conclusions and recommends corrective actions. The information output of 4.4 is not raw, but is derived.

All the engineering work is carried out on the basis of a plan. Because changes can happen in between, and there can be a gap between the instance at which as change request is approved to the instance at which the plan is approved, the engineering work is always carried out based on two entities:

  1. Project Management Plan and
  2. Approved Change Requests

Important ITTOs:

Input

Approved Change Requests

These are change requests approved by the change control board (CCB) for implementation which may be a corrective action, a preventive action or a defect repair.

Tools and Techniques

None

Output

Deliverables

Any unique and verifiable product, result or capacity to perform service that is required to complete a process, project or phase. Typically engineering deliverables that make the end product or service.

Work performance data

Lowest level of detail in the project. Raw observations resulting from task executions. Examples are defects, issues, task status. It is an output of the process 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work.

Change request

A formal proposal to modify any document deliverable or baseline which will be evaluated and disposed by the change control board (CCB).

4.4 Monitor and Control Project Work

This is the process where the PM takes the information derived from various controlling processes (such as control scope, control schedule etc.) and draws conclusions about the project and recommends corrective actions. Creates a status report and then further circulates it in the “Manage Communications” process.

Important ITTOs

Input

Validated Changes

Implemented change requests that have gone through a validation such as a review or testing. This is further used to close the change request.

Work performance information

Information derived by analyzing the work performance data. For example, the impact of a task delay (Work performance data) on the overall project duration, the schedule forecast (Work performance information) is derived by analyzing work performance data. This is an output of many controlling processes such as ‘control cost’, ‘control schedule’, ‘control quality’ etc.

Tools and Techniques

None

Outputs

Change requests

Work performance report

A project status report that is sent to stakeholders.

4.5 Perform Integrated Change Control

This is the process that handles all the changes to any base lined deliverables in the project. Any entity in the project, a deliverable, a project document or a project plan are subject to version control. In a version control mechanism, an entity is developed and then once it takes shape, it is reviewed and approved. Once approved, it cannot be changed further without a change control mechanism. Controlling the changes after an approval is called base lining.

An entity is assigned a version number such as 1.0 or 2.0 when base lined and after a change, the version is incremented to say 1.1 or 2.1 and so on. The life cycle of a change request is as follows:

  1. A change request is raised (In a form)
  2. The change is reviewed by a change control board (CCB)
  3. The change is either approved or rejected
    1. If the change is rejected, then the change log is updated accordingly and the change request is considered closed
    2. If the change is approved, it is then implemented
    3. After implementing the change it is validated
  4. After validation the change request is closed and the change log is updated

Important ITTOs

Input

Work Performance Reports – Details the change requests newly raised and change requests that are validated and can be closed.

Change Requests

Tools and Techniques

Change Control Tools

Manual tools or software tools used to raise change requests, review change requests, approve and dispose the change requests and track their status throughout.

Output

Approved Change requests

Change log

Change requests are reviewed in this process and are either approved or rejected. Accordingly change requests that are approved or change log updated with the information of rejection of a change request are among the outputs of this process

4.6 Close Project Or Phase

This process starts only after the customer accepts the deliverables. Acceptance of the deliverables by the customer happens in the “Validate Scope” process (5.5) whose output is accepted deliverables. The PM carries out a session to document lessons learnt, contributes to organization’s knowledge management, archives the documents, transitions the deliverables and sends out a final status report.

The most important aspect to be noted in this process is that without a formal acceptance by the customer the project is not moved into the closure phase.

Important ITTOs

Input

Accepted Deliverables

The final deliverables that comprise the product, service or result that the customer has reviewed and deemed accepted.

Tools and Techniques

None

Outputs

Final product service or result transition

Points to be remembered with emphasis in the KA

  • Assignment of PM
  • Difference between high level estimates and estimates
  • Difference between high level scope and scope (WBS)
  • Difference between high level risks and risks
  • Project charter development is the responsibility of the sponsor

Dependencies

  • Hard dependencies
    • Project charter
    • Stakeholder register
    • Change request
    • Accepted deliverables
  • Soft dependencies
    • Project management plan to subsidiary plans
    • Change requests

Important process flows

  • Work performance data à Work performance information à Work performance report
  • Deliverables à Verified deliverables à Accepted deliverables à Close project

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