Project Integration Management - overview

The knowledge area of Project Integration Management covers the following five processes. There are six processes that fall across all five process groups.

1. Develop Project Charter (Initiating Process)
• The process of developing a document to formally authorize the project and provides the project manager with the authority. 
2. Develop Project Management Plan (Planning Process)
• The process of defining, preparing and coordinating all subsidiary plans and combining them into the Project Management Plan.
3. Direct and Manage Project Work (Executing Process) 
• The process of leading and preforming the work defined in the Project Management Plan and implementing the approved changes for the projects objectives.
4. Monitor and Control Project Work (Monitor and Control Process)
• The process of tracking, reviewing, and reporting project progress against the performance objectives in the Project Management Plan.
5. Preform Integrated Change Control (Monitor and Control Process)
• The process of reviewing all change requests
• Approve the changes
• Manage changes to deliverables, organizational process assets, project documents, and project management plan
• Communicate the disposition
6. Close Project or Phase (Closing Process)
• The process of finalizing all activities across all of the Process Groups to formally complete the project or phase. 

So why do we need Project Integration Management you ask? Well lets look at the definition first. 

Project Integration Management = includes the processes and activities to identify, define, combine, unify and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the Project Management Process Groups. (PMBOK Guide 5th ed.)

Imagine you have to hire someone to help program one of the software programs you are creating. You didn't originally plan for this and now you have to figure out where they fit into your project plan. Hiring someone increases your cost of the project so now you have to make sure the costs are still within reason of the original budget costs. Also you have to make sure that the work they are doing is being monitored so they need to be added into your human resource management plan. Because you have an extra pair of hands you can get the work done faster so you need to update your schedule of the project. 

We as project managers have to make sure that all elements of the project plan are coordinated properly. Project integration management houses the processes that allows us to do so. It is a key element in balancing scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk, procurement and managing the stakeholders.