Project Integration Management

Project Integration Management

Project integration management means coordinating all the other processes and activities of project management, so as to ensure that the aim of the project is achieved as efficiently as is practicably possible. In terms of the project management process groups and knowledge areas, then integration is the means by which the project manager uses the right part of the process groups and knowledge areas, at the right time, in the right way to achieve the aim. The PMI’s PMBOK says that integration includes…unification, consolidation, articulation and integrative actions that are crucial to meeting customer and stakeholder requirements and managing expectations.

Project integration management à project integration management is about deciding where to focus project management effort, and deciding in a systematic way that draws on experience and best practice.

Integration as the term is used in project management, is also about:

     1.      Making and managing changes in the project

     2.      Making decision

     3.      Knowing where to focus resources and effort

     4.      Identifying risk and issues

     5.      Reducing or eliminating the impact of risks, issues and changes.

All of this work must be controlled, managed and integration in order to prove beneficial to the overall project.

Project Integration Management (by PMI): Project integration management includes the process and activities needed to identify, define, combine, unify and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the project management process groups. In the project management context, integration includes characteristics of unification, consolidation, articulation and integrative actions that are crucial to project completion, successfully meeting customer and stakeholder requirements and managing expectations.

Process Group
Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring & controlling	Closing
Develop project charter	Develop project management plan	Direct & manage project execution	Monitoring & control project work	Close project
Develop preliminary scope statement			Integrated change control

Integration is about the right thing at the right time to make the project happen. Project integration management is about linking and coordinating project and product processes and knowledge areas to ensure the best possible planning and execution of the project. This can be a difficult task. It requires a trade-off between competing requirements and objectives. In real life, being able to do integration requires a certain level of knowledge and experience on the part of the project manager. Integration management is an exception to the general rule in project management that most of project management is applied common sense, that is, it can be worked out just by thinking about the task. While it is common sense that in a large or complex project, there is a discrete task that is integration, even if it called by some other term, the processes involved in such integration are not so easily deduced from first principles in the way that much of planning and HR management.

There are many different project management methodologies, but the key to all of them is integration. Integration is important because in order to satisfy the sponsor and stakeholder requirements, a project manager needs to manage the interaction across all organizational and process boundaries. This requires making trade-offs. As the performance trade-offs will be different for each project, experience and history are only partial guides. The larger and more complex the project, the more iterations will be necessary to ensure stakeholder requirements are met, as well as getting agreement on the process outcomes.

The project manager’s main responsibility is to make sure the objectives and agreed deliverables are met, on time and within budget. This is what integration is about. The most important tools for project integration are planning, communication and leadership. Other skills are influencing, negotiating and problem solving.

Understanding how the project will interact with the organization

The first step in project integration management is to understand how the project’s deliverables will interact with the current or future operations of the organization.

If the structure of the organization will alter during life of the project, the interactions initially established between the project and stakeholders will needs to change and adapt according to the reorganization, and there needs to be a plan, and before that a vision in the mind of the project manager, for realizing and managing that change. So, as a project manager, consider all likely organizational changes, so that their impact is reflected in your project management work, especially in planning. One of the greatest impacts on projects from organizational changes is changes in stakeholders. New organizational structures mean new stakeholders. New stakeholders should be involved in project planning activity as soon as they are identified, in order to minimize the risk that they might refuse to accept the project’s deliverables.

  

Integrating external inputs to the project

We have seen that integration means pulling together and prioritizing and coordinating all project management activities. The project manager, helped where necessary by the project sponsor, will have authority over resources allocated to the project and over processes that fall within the jurisdiction of the project. However, such is the nature of project management that many of the resources and processes critical to the success of the project are not under the command of the project manager.

At best, the sponsor and project manager have some degree of influence over many of the critical resources and processes. Therefore, a key factor during initiation and planning process of the project is to integrate resources and processes that are necessary for the project from those beyond the ones controlled by project.

Influencing and coordinating resources outside the project’s command

Influencing resources outside the project’s control is related to the previous subsection, on integrating external inputs to the project. The problem of influencing and coordinating resources over which the project team have no direct authority needs to be managed at all stages of the project. Project never have enough resources or access to processes. This is natural given the nature of projects as temporary endeavors concerned with innovation or change. Project have direct control of only a fraction of what they need in order to succeed.

The individual processes within project integration management are:

      1.      Develop project charter

      2.      Develop preliminary project scope statement

      3.      Develop project management plan

      4.      Direct and manage project execution

      5.      Monitor and control project work

      6.      Integrated change control

      7.      Close project

The sequence of integration processes

Project management starts with the project initiation. In project initiation the various project stakeholders are brought together to develop the project charter and the preliminary scope statement. Once those things are done then moves into the planning phase. Planning uses the outputs from initiation to start integrating all the detail needed to prepare, develop and coordinate the subsidiary plans produced in the project management plan.

The next stage of integration management is to direct and manage the execution process group by completing the work specified in the project management plan, together with the implementation of the approved changes. During execution a major output presented to the project manager is information about work performance. This information is assessed and reviewed to determine whether the project is running as planned or whether it is running at variance to the performance baselines. This information gathering and assessment is what is called monitoring and controlling.

Project Control (Part 3)

Lag and Leads

Lags and leads are techniques to introduce duration delays or accelerations in the network. These are used for all types of relationships, the logic of predecessor/successor is respected; however the start and end date calculations for each activity are adjusted according to the technique used (Forward and Backward Passes).

Lags will delay the successor’s start or end date (depending on the type of relationship, it has with its predecessor). Lags are often used when the successor activity, in order to commence, requires the predecessor activity to perform of its own work. At other times, the successor activity can only be completed after receiving and utilizing the results of its predecessor. Often lags are introduced in the network to cater for a lapse of time that does not use resources.

Leads will accelerate the start date of the successor activity. They are only used for FS links when seeking to optimize and fast track the project.

Figure 1.0 the application of lags and leads

Forward and Backward Passes

The activity network represents the logical flow of work to be performed. A completed and verified network illustrates the sequences of activities. These sequences are called path. All the paths radiate from the start point of the network and converge back into the end point.

Now it is time for the activity network to return meaningful scheduling dates for each activity to the team. The critical path method (CPM) provides for this. The method was developed in the 1950s in a joint venture between Du Pont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation. While the scheduling method was developed specifically for the construction industry, it can be applied to any project with interdependent activities. CPM enables the project critical path to be determined by tracing the logical sequence of activities that directly affect the completion date of the project through a project network from start to finish. There may be more than one critical path depending on workflow logic. A delay to progress of any activity on the critical path will cause the overall project duration to be extended.

Using CPM, date calculations are made for each activity a long each path by proceeding by a Forward pass of the network and then a Backward pass (see Figure 2.0).

Figure 2.0

Each activity is then boxed by the following:

    1.     Earliest Start time – ES is the earliest time at which the activity can start depending on its precedent activities.

     2.     Earliest Finish time – EF is the earliest time at which the activity can finish. This is equal to the earliest start time for the activity plus the duration of the activity.

    3.     Latest Start time – LS is the latest time at which the activity can start. This is equal to the latest finish time for the activity minus the duration of the activity.

    4.     Latest Finish time – LF is the latest time at which the activity can be completed without delaying the project.

At this stage of scheduling it is important to note that all calculations will be made in absolute terms of duration in the established working unit, where the network’s start is set to zero.

The GANTT chart, once adopt to both civil and corporate calendars, will present the schedule against a meaningful calendar.

Forward Pass

The forward pass is the technique used to calculate the earliest start (ES) and earliest finish (EF) dates for each activity on each activity on each path of the network. It is a relatively simple process, requiring easy arithmetic (unless using PERT or other probabilistic estimating technique). The principle for single predecessor, finish to start (FS) relationships is straight forward:

The network start activity, of a duration of zero, is set to zero. Its ES and EF are also set to zero. Proceeding down each path, the ES of an activity is set to equal the EF of the predecessor activity. The EF of the said activity is set to its ES plus its duration.

This process is followed until all ES and EF dates of all activities are determined for all paths. As all paths converge to the finish activity, which has a duration of zero, the ES of the finish can be set and its EF set equal for the ES (see Figure 3.0).

Figure 3.0

Multiple Predecessor

When more than one predecessor exist, the ES of the activity will be set to highest EF value of its predecessor.

In the example (see Figure 4.0), the paint walls activity cannot start before both activities clean/dry walls an earliest finish (EF) date of 15 and paint delivery with an EF dates, the resulting ES date of paint walls become 36.

Figure 4.0

Backward pass

The backward pass is the technique to calculate the latest start (LS) and latest finish (LF) dates for each activity on each path of the network. It is a relatively simple process, requiring easy arithmetic.

The principle for single predecessor, finish to start relationships is straight forward:

The pass commences with the network’s finish activity date. The ES date of the finish activity has been calculated by the forward pass. Since the activity has a duration of zero, then its EF date is set equal to the ES. The LS and LF dates also set to equal the activity’s ES and EF.

Proceeding backwards along each path, the LF of an activity is set to equal the LS of the successor activity. The LS of the activity is set to its LF minus its duration.  This process is followed until all LS and LF dates of all activities are determined for all paths. As all paths converge back to the beginning of the network, the LF of the start activity can be set and the LS is set equal to it (see figure 5.0).

Figure 5.0

Calculating Float (Slack)

Float is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed past its ES or EF without causing a delay to:

          1.     Project completion date – Total Float (TF)

          2.     Subsequent activities – Free Float (FF)

Total Float

The Total float for an activity is the total amount of time that a schedule activity may be delayed from its EF date without delaying the project finish date, or violating a schedule constraint.

TF = LF – EF or LS - ES

Free Float

The Free float is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the ES of any immediate successor activity.

The Free float is determined between two consecutive and is the difference between the successor’s ES start and the predecessor’s EF.

Project Control Part 2

Scheduling Overview

To effectively plan and control a project, the project manager need to be able to process large amount of data quickly and accurately to ascertain the complexity of the resulting schedule. The activity network and the activity scheduled bar chart/GANTT chart are two of the key scheduling steps, which are central to successful time management planning, cost management and resource management planning. From the activity network, a structure is created to allow for project control and tracking including monitoring project progress, earned value management, information processing and project reporting.

The activity network and the GANTT chart provide a highly structured and methodical approach to project scheduling. Along with the project resource loading chart and cost requirements, they are fundamental to establishing the project baseline plan.

The scheduling steps continue from the project planning definitions given by the work breakdown structure (WBS) and the duration/cost estimations of work packages.

The major steps are:

    1 .     Define the relationships between activities

    2 .     Draw the activity network diagram

    3 .     Perform the network analysis

    4 .     Transcribe network analysis results to a GANTT Chart

    5 .     Introduce project “must dates”

    6 .     Optimize the activity network and resulting GANTT chart

    7 .     Build the cumulative cost estimate curve

    8 .     Establish and adapt the project’s resource requirements

With the advent of the project management software, there is a strong temptation to build the strong temptation to build the activity relationships and the network directly on the computer. The project manager must persuade the team members to avoid this, as not only is it extremely difficult to perform the precedence analysis on a computer screen, where few activities can actually be seen and the whole network be visualized, it most of all defeats all team dynamics objectives, as there is little or no active team member collaboration, participation, and eventual ownership. Use “brain ware” and “team ware” first, then use software.

Activity Networks

The first step before drawing the activity network is to determine the logical and physical dependencies of the work packages. Only activities are considered and ordered following a precedence analysis. The project manager and the team members will thus convert the hierarchal WBS to a sequenced network of activities. A network is not cyclical---there no loops, as every task must be connected to another task or event, thus creating paths over time.

The network is created based on assumptions about resource availability and estimated durations of each task, as well as on the evaluation of the interdependencies of work packages.

Determining the sequence of work packages

The convention in building a network of activities is to have a start activity at the beginning and finish at the end. Another convention is to show the flow of the network from the left to right and not top to bottom. Dependencies among work packages are defined and recorded for each. When the predecessors are identified for each work package, they should only be for immediate predecessors for a given work packages are possible and often exist.

Other than the start and finish, all work packages will have a predecessor and successor work package. The network must also include all dependencies and relationships to work package or events from and to external interrelated and concomitant projects.

The project manager must recognize:

     1.  Mandatory (physical) dependenciesà those dependencies that are inherent to the type of work being done. They cannot and will not change, no matter how many individuals are working on a task or how many hours are allocated to task.

     2.  Discretionary (logical) dependenciesà those dependencies that are defined by the project team, that offer the choice to the project manager to schedule tasks in a certain way.

     3. External dependenciesà outside the realm of the project or outside the control of the project manager, these dependencies may direct how portions of the project schedule must be defined.

Building the precedence chart of activities

Team work, the project manager and the core team will construct and visualize the activity network on a wall, using post is notes either taken from previous WBS structure or specifically developed for this step.

The activity network can then be illustrated either as an activity on arrow (AOA) or an activity on node (AON).

The activity on node network

The activity on node (AON), also called the precedence diagramming method (PDM), represents activities as the nodes, usually in the shape of a rectangle and the dependencies as arrows.

This type of activity network offers a variety of relationships that are discussed in the next section

Types of activity relationships

It is essential to establish the most effective physical and logical relationships for activities within the project’s network, as well as to correctly define the interfaces from and to other projects. Only with a solid structure and framework can the activity network subsequently reflect the calendar for the project and its required resources.

The AON/PDM is very powerful, in that it offers four types of relationships that allow for more flexibility in defining the precedence between activities. Furthermore, the AON/PDM allows for meaningful ways to accelerate or delay the schedule, as will be seen in section Lags and Leads.

There are four relationships, sometimes called constraints, which are explained further in the following sections:

       1.     Finish to Start – FS

       2.     Start to Start – SS

       3.     Finish to Finish – FF

       4.     Start to Finish - SF

There is an additional relationships, a hammock, which also explained below:

Finish to start relationships

The finish to start (FS) is the most common relationship. An activity can only start if the preceding activity has been totally completed. This relationship can be further developed by applying a delay between the two activities by use of a lag.

Start to start relationships

The start to start (SS) represents the relationship between the start dates of two activities. Precedence still exists between the two activities and the direction of the relationship is important, as the start of the successor activity is conditional only upon the start of the predecessor activity. During project implementation, any delay on the start of the predecessor will impact the start of the successor.

Finish to finish relationships

The finish to finish (FF) represents the relationship between the end dates of two activities. Precedence still exists between the two activities, and the direction of the relationship is important, as the end of the predecessor activity. During project implementation, any delay on the end of the predecessor will impact the end of the successor.

Hammock relationships

This is not a relationship per se. An extra activity, called a hammock activity, is introduced in the network to group a number of activities under one summary activity. It is often used to insert a higher level key highlight for faster and easier reporting to senior management, who only wish to capture the project’s important issues in the schedule at summary level.

Lag and Leads

Lags and Leads are techniques to introduce duration delays or accelerations in the network. These are used for all types of relationships.

Risk Management

Risk Management

Project risk management addresses the uncertain events or conditions that, if they occur, have negative or positive effects on the project objectives. A risk event may have one or more causes and one or more effects. Primarily the effects would be on the major vectors of the triple constraints: scope, cost and schedule. The effects also extend to cover corporate image and reputation, safety, environmental issues and the future operability of the project’s product.

Risk management seeks to protect the project, in fulfilling its objectives in an environment outside its control, by developing proactive and reactive action plans (see figure 1.0).

Figure 1.0 Risk Management Environment

Risk management encompasses identifying, analyzing, responding to, and controlling project risks. It aim to minimize the consequences of negative and adverse events and maximize the results of positive events.

The process of determining an acceptable level of negative risk during the pursuit of a project, and managing these during project implementation, is necessary to successfully accomplish project objectives. Risk management must be pursued as an integral part of the project management process. Risks are managed in a concerted effort by the project manager and the project core team members.

Project by definition, are performed in the future, and as a corollary project risks have their origins in the uncertainty and the current levels of the unknowns of the undertaking.

The expected duration of a project presents different time windows of uncertainty, ranging from low and manageable to high and totally speculative. The project manager has to establish an appropriate risk analysis and plan frequency, which correspond to the project’s time frame. The longer the expected duration of the project, the more frequent the cycles of the risk management process.

Assumptions are closely related to uncertainties and unknowns, and clearly play a major role in risk management. They are by definition virtual facts on which plans are made. They have to validate for realism. If too many exist, then the project manager must pause the risk management process to determine if further analysis, where possible, is not required to convert assumptions into real facts.

Risk events may be under the control and influence of the project manager, or they may depend on external factors and be outside of control. Additionally, risk events very in their characteristics. They can be:

1. Recurring, as they can occur at any time during the project, for example, illness or forced stoppage of any resource.
2. Unique, in that they can only exist at a prescribed time window of the project, for example, bad weather in the rainy seasons.
3. Interdependent, causing a cascading effect, for example the defect of a provider’s product may cause delays in installation, which may lead to penalties for late delivery.

The origin of risk events can be internal or external.

Internal risk events may be controlled or influenced by the project team using resource assignments and cost or schedule estimates. For examples of the internal risk, organized by category, include the following:

Technology	New or untested technology Availability of technical expertise Customization (design modifications)
Schedule	Resource availability Schedule constraints Dependencies
Financial	Funding or budget Estimate accuracy
Legal	Patent right
	Data right

External risk events are those beyond the control or influence of the project team, such as customer decisions, market shifts, and governing body actions. For example of external risk, organized by category, include the following:

Unpredictable	Regulatory changes Natural Hazard
Predictable but uncertainty	Market changes Inflation

Terminology

1. Risk events

A risk is the occurrence of a particular set of circumstances and is composed of three basic components which are (1) a definable event-threat or opportunity (2)Probability of occurrence (3) Consequence (impact) of occurrence.

2. Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a representation of the possible range of values associated with either (1) a future outcome or (2) the lack of knowledge of an existing state. Uncertainty can be expressed as a deterministic quantitative value, a qualitative value or a probability distribution.

3. Threat and Opportunities

Threats are risk events that, should they occur, will cause negative effects to the project’s objectives. These are defined during the identification step of the project risk management process. Measures need to be taken to increase their probability and or impact.

4. Probability

Probability is the likelihood that a risk event will occur. This can be expressed qualitatively using an ordinal scale which are high, medium or low or using a cardinal scale as a single value or as a percentage.

5. Impact

The impact is the effect and or consequence on the project if the risk event should occur. This can be expressed qualitatively using an ordinal scale which are high, medium or low. Quantitatively in monetary terms or descriptive of the consequences that can be subsequently estimated and valued in monetary terms.