Project Integration Management PDF

 Describe an overall framework for project integration management as it relates to the other PM knowledge areas and the project life cycle  Discuss the strategic planning process and apply different project selection methods  Explain the importance of creating a project charter...

 Describe an overall framework for project integration management as it relates to the other PM knowledge areas and the project life cycle  Discuss the strategic planning process and apply different project selection methods  Explain the importance of creating a project charter to formally initiate projects  Describe project management plan development, understand the content of these plans, and describe approaches for creating them  Describe the process of monitoring and controlling a project  Define the integrated change control process, and create an appropriate change control system  Explain the importance of developing and following good procedures for closing projects  Discuss considerations for agile/adaptive environments  Project managers must coordinate all of the other knowledge areas throughout a project’s life cycle  Many new project managers have trouble looking at the “big picture” and want to focus on too many details  Project integration management is not the same thing as software integration  Main processes ◦ Developing the project charter ◦ Developing the project management plan ◦ Directing and managing project work ◦ Monitoring and controlling project work ◦ Performing integrated change control ◦ Closing the project or phase  Strategic planning involves determining long-term objectives ◦ Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of an organization ◦ Studying opportunities and threats in the business environment ◦ Predicting future trends ◦ Projecting the need for new products and services  SWOT analysis ◦ Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats  Identifying potential projects ◦ Start of project initiation  Aligning IT with business strategy ◦ Organization must develop a strategy for using IT to define how it will support the organization’s objectives  Potential projects must be narrowed down ◦ Methods for selecting projects  Focusing on broad organizational needs  Categorizing information technology projects  Performing net present value or other financial analyses  Using a weighted scoring model  Implementing a balanced scorecard  Projects that address broad organizational needs are much more likely to be successful because they will be important to the organization ◦ Examples: improve safety or increase morale  Important criteria for selecting projects ◦ Need ◦ Funding ◦ Will  Categorizations ◦ Respond to a problem, opportunity, or directive ◦ How long it will take to do and when it is needed ◦ Overall priority of the project  Financial considerations are often an important consideration in selecting projects ◦ Regardless of current economics  Primary methods for determining the projected financial value of projects ◦ Net present value (NPV) analysis ◦ Return on investment (ROI) ◦ Payback analysis  After deciding what project to work on, it is important to let the rest of the organization know ◦ A project charter is a document that formally recognizes the existence of a project and provides direction on the project’s objectives and management  Key project stakeholders should sign a project charter to acknowledge agreement on the need and intent of the project ◦ A project charter is a key output of the initiation process  Inputs for developing a project charter ◦ Business case ◦ Benefits management plan ◦ Agreements ◦ Enterprise environmental factors ◦ Organizational process assets  Document used to coordinate all project planning documents and help guide a project’s execution and control ◦ Plans created in the other knowledge areas are subsidiary parts of the overall project management plan  Common elements of a project management plan ◦ Introduction/overview of the project ◦ Description of how the project is organized ◦ Management and technical processes used on the project ◦ Work to be done ◦ Schedule and budget information ◦ References to other project planning documents  Involves managing and performing the work described in the project management plan ◦ The majority of time and money is usually spent on execution  The application area of the project directly affects project execution ◦ Products of the project are produced during the execution phase  The project manager needs to focus on leading the project team and managing stakeholder relationships to execute the project management plan successfully ◦ Project resource management, communications management, and stakeholder management are crucial to a project’s success  Project planning and execution are intertwined and inseparable activities ◦ The main function of creating a project management plan is to guide project execution  Those who will do the work should help to plan the work ◦ All project personnel need to develop both planning and executing skills, and they need experience in these areas  Project managers must lead by example ◦ Demonstrate the importance of creating and then following good project plans and following them in project execution  Organizational culture can help project execution ◦ Providing guidelines and templates ◦ Tracking performance based on plans  Project managers may still need to break the rules to meet project goals ◦ Senior managers must support those actions  It is often helpful for IT project managers to have prior technical experience ◦ Small projects: the project manager may be required to perform some of the technical work or mentor team members to complete the projects ◦ Large projects: the project manager must understand the business and application area of the project  Basic types of knowledge ◦ Explicit knowledge: easily explained using words, pictures, or numbers and is easy to communicate, store, and distribute ◦ Tacit knowledge: difficult to express and highly personal  Knowledge management should be done before, during, and after projects are completed ◦ Often very difficult to accomplish  Changes are inevitable on most projects, so it’s important to develop and follow a process to monitor and control changes ◦ Monitoring project work includes collecting, measuring, and disseminating performance information ◦ The project management plan provides the baseline for identifying and controlling project changes  A baseline is a starting point, a measurement, or an observation that is documented so that it can be used for future comparison.  Main objectives ◦ Influencing the factors that create changes to ensure that changes are beneficial ◦ Determining that a change has occurred ◦ Managing actual changes as they occur  Former view: the project team should strive to do exactly what was planned on time and within budget  Problem: project teams could rarely meet original project goals  Modern view: project management is a process of constant communication and negotiation  Solution: changes are often beneficial and the project team should plan for them  Formal, documented process that describes when and how official project documents and work may be changed ◦ Describes who is authorized to make changes, paperwork required for these changes, and any automated or manual tracking systems the project will use  Change control board (CCB) is a formal group of people responsible for approving or rejecting changes on a project ◦ Provide guidelines for preparing change requests, evaluate change requests, and manage the implementation of approved changes  Some CCBs only meet occasionally, so it may take too long for changes to occur ◦ Some organizations have policies in place for time-sensitive changes  Configuration management ensures that the descriptions of the project’s products are correct and complete ◦ Involves identifying and controlling the functional and physical design characteristics of products and their support documentation ◦ Configuration management specialists identify and document configuration requirements, control changes, record and report changes, and audit the products to verify conformance to requirements  To close a project or phase, you must finalize all activities and transfer the completed or cancelled work to the appropriate people ◦ Main inputs are the project charter, project management plan, project documents, accepted deliverables, business documents, agreements, procurement documentation, and organizational process assets ◦ Main tools and techniques are expert judgment, data analysis, and meetings  Iterative and agile approaches promote the engagement of team members  Expectations of the project manager do not change in an adaptive environment, but control of the detailed product planning and delivery is delegated to the team  Project managers using any product life cycle should focus on creating a collaborative decision-making environment and providing opportunities for team members to develop additional skills  Project integration management ties together all the other areas of project management ◦ Primary focus should be on project integration management  Main processes ◦ Develop the project charter ◦ Create an assumption log ◦ Develop the project management plan ◦ Direct and manage project execution ◦ Manage project knowledge ◦ Monitor and control project work ◦ Perform integrated change control ◦ Close the project or phase