Project Integration Management –
A Comprehensive Guide

The Importance of Project Integration Management

Projects can be quite dynamic and complex. Proper and efficient project management is necessary to get all the various elements working in tandem, such as the following :

• Scope
• Budgets
• Timelines
• Resources
• Stakeholders
• Risks

With project integration management, you can keep track of all these elements to achieve several benefits, as mentioned below.

1. Clarify Roles and Responsibilities

Through project integration management, you ensure that all resources, managers, and stakeholders have a clear understanding of what their roles and responsibilities are. It becomes easier to address any confusion and issues that might crop up.

2. Minimize Potential Conflicts:

Project integration management tracks and keeps the various elements in check, helping you understand how each factor can affect the others. For example, reassigning a resource from one task to another without understanding its effect can lead to bloated costs or delays in project delivery. Similarly, a seemingly simple decision about your project can even impact other areas of your business. For example, extending the allocation of a resource in your project may end up delaying another project in your organization. Without integration management, it becomes difficult to quickly identify potential conflicts such as the above.

3. Make Better Decisions

There are multiple steps in project integration management. Each of those steps serve a purpose. By going through these steps, you gain a better understanding of the best actions that you can take for the project at a given point in time. It also helps you clearly communicate to your stakeholders why certain actions were taken to keep everyone on track.

4. Keep Projects On Course

Of course, one of the major benefits of project integration management is that it keeps your project on course to meet established budgets and deadlines. You also ensure that the project remains aligned with the overall project management plan to deliver the results that your stakeholders expect. This is made possible by minimizing the effect of conflicts or changes on the project by resolving them quickly.

The Project Integration Management Process

To successfully implement project integration management, you need to follow seven processes. These seven steps help you coordinate and harmonize all your project activities effectively in a cohesive manner. The seven steps are:

• Develop your project charter
• Develop your project management plan
• Allocate and manage your project tasks
• Manage project knowledge
• Track and control your project tasks
• Perform integrated change control
• Close your project

The 7 Steps Of Project Integration Management

Let us now take a look at those seven steps in detail.

1. Develop Your Project Charter

Projects generally begin with the development of a project charter. This is a short document that gives an overview of your project, while also defining the key stakeholders and the project manager. The charter lays down the foundation for further planning and developing your project. You can use it to gain stakeholder approvals and buy-ins to get the project rolling quickly.

Some of the elements in a project charter are:

• The Scope
• The Objectives
• The Budgets
• The Risks
• The Team Members

2. Develop Your Project Management Plan

You can start developing the project plan, once the project charter is ready. The project plan is more detailed than the charter and specifies different aspects of the project. It includes the scope statement, the timelines, the work breakdown structures, the schedules, the risks, the milestones, and the deliverables among others. The project plan also has the metrics on which you will be evaluating the success of the project. It further directs the management and execution of your project to achieve the objectives and requirements of the stakeholders.

3. Allocate and Manage Your Project Tasks

The third step in the project integration management process involves efficient project execution. In this step, the project manager will direct the everyday work involved in the project like taking charge of the team, holding meetings with stakeholders, and tracking progress. The project manager needs to monitor the tasks and ensure that they are accomplished according to the plan and scope statement.

4. Manage Project Knowledge

This step involves using existing information or gathering more knowledge to achieve project goals through the process known as project knowledge management. Through this step, you ensure that your team members have all the data and information that they require to achieve the desired project deliverables. It is important to note that any knowledge, data, or expertise gained during this step is invaluable to the organization in the long run. It contributes to the overall knowledge base of the organization which can be used for future endeavors or projects.

5. Track and Control Your Project Tasks

The different processes involved in project integration management are interlinked. Therefore, the project manager must track and control them to ensure that all the elements are in alignment with the project management plan. In this step, the goal is to take control of the various tasks and elements to keep the project on course. The project manager needs to identify any deviations, issues, or confusions proactively and quickly perform course corrections where necessary.

6. Perform Integrated Change Control

It is a well-known fact that changes to projects can be downright stressful, particularly if they are not managed properly. By implementing a change control process, you can reduce and even eliminate potential roadblocks and issues. Assess every change request that comes in to ensure that they don’t go beyond the scope or causes scope creep. Consider the impact of those changes on the timelines, budgets, and resources. For the success of any project, it is essential to smoothly Integrate change requests into the current project.

7. Close Your Project Successfully

Once all tasks are complete and the deliverables have been approved by your client, you can finally start closing the project. However, you cannot just shut down the project and call it a day. A proper project closure process must be followed. That involves having a final meeting with the stakeholders and performing a formal review of your project. You must also ensure that all project materials are organized and archived for future reference. Project closure allows you to use the data gained from the project to support future projects while providing insight on how you can improve your project integration management process.

Simplify Project Integration Management with Polaris PSA

Project integration management is all about bringing all project processes together for successfully completing the project. With Polaris PSA, you gain a unified platform for managing all processes, tasks, resources, and data for planning and executing your project from the bidding stage to the final delivery.

To help you gain a complete and comprehensive picture of your projects in real-time, Polaris PSA cuts across the data silos in your organization. This is made possible with configurable out-of-the-box integrations that support all leading business applications from project management and collaboration tools to accounting to ERP/CRM and more. Some examples include MS Projects, Slack, Asana, Atlassian, Workday, Salesforce, MS Dynamics, etc.

Over the years, we have solved integration problems for many of our customers in addition to providing a host of other project management benefits. See their stories below:

• Golder Associates
• Contoural
• Enservio