Project Integration Management

Hi guys, have you heard of ‘Project Integration Management’ while managing social projects? In most cases the answer is likely to be ‘No’; Let’s now try to look at what exactly is ‘Project integration management’ and how we can apply it while managing social projects 

Managing social projects has become quite challenging in present days with increased expectations from various stakeholders like donors, vulnerable communities the project serves, the government, and more. Social projects could cover multiple geographies within the country and sometimes they could be spread in a few other countries which necessitates managing different time zones, languages, and cultural issues. Also, there is ever-increasing competition within the sector for better project performance for the organization’s survival making efficient project management necessary in the social sector.

Moreover, the projects and their activities don’t function in isolation. They become interdependent and have to manage shared resources across multiple projects that require proper coordination within the project team and also between different other project teams in the organization and many times with the teams outside the organization. The latter is becoming common with increasing collaborations within the social sector. 

In a social project, the project team depends on other teams like the communication team, finance team, government liaison team, monitoring and evaluation team, and procurement team for different activity support. 

A project manager’s role is critical in aligning all teams and their work based on individual knowledge areas, resource allocation, scheduling activities, and stakeholder interests keeping in mind the project’s priorities and deliverables. At this juncture, conflicts are common and need to be handled carefully. Project manager at times may have to look for alternative approaches 

Project integration management plays a vital role in orchestrating the group of various project activities, processes, and stakeholders as shown below:

Project Managers in the social sector have to be diligent and assess the nature of the project. When the project has several teams contributing with multiple stakeholders involved, one shouldn’t ignore project integration management. The best practice is to adopt and follow the 7 steps described in this section. Let’s go through them in detail.

Step 1: Develop Project Charter

The first crucial step in project management but most ignored process by project managers in the social sector.  This document authorizes the existence of a project and the project manager is given authority to manage the organization’s resources and initiate project activities. This activity falls under the ‘initiating process group’

Project charter is the output of this step

Read more on Project Charter

Step 2: Prepare Project Management Plan

The project moves from the initiating stage to the planning stage, where the project manager has a better clarity and understanding of the project. 

It is a detailed and comprehensive formal document it’s a set of documents, each one being a subsidiary plan:

• Project scope management – defining, validating, and controlling the scope of the project 
• Project schedule management – estimating activities, and timelines and controlling them
• Project cost management – estimating cost and managing budget 
• Project resource management – human resources estimation, acquiring, and developing
• Project quality management – quality considerations, 
• Project communications management – plan and manage communications 
• Project stakeholder management – identifying, managing & engaging stakeholders 
• Project procurement management – planning and executing procurements  
• Project risk management – identifying and analyzing risks & implementing risk response

The project management plan serves as a roadmap towards the success of the project detailing how the project would be executed, monitored and controlled, and finally closed. 

Some of the tools and techniques that aid project managers are: 

• Expert judgement.
• Data collection tools like Brainstorming, Checklists, focus groups, and Interviews can be used. 

Major outputs of this step are: 

• Project management plan including the subsidiary plans are the outputs of this step.

Project managers in the social sector have adopted a few techniques under subsidiary plans like the use of Gantt charts under scheduling, budget estimation under cost management, developing communication material for project use like Information Education and Communication (IEC) material, project reports, and adhering to procurement principles. 

However, there is a chance for improvement in adopting emerging techniques in preparing all the above subsidiary plans. We will see them in each of the sections in detail. 

Step 3: Direct Project Work

Moving from the planning to the executing stage, the project manager guides the team towards executing the planned project activities. The team completes planned deliverables towards achieving the objectives within the scheduled time.  Resources are allocated and managed to accomplish activities. Various interfaces within the organization are managed, changes in plans are accepted and corrective actions are initiated. Completion of deliverables is ascertained based on the performance data collected and analyzed. 

Changes in the plans are expected here, which need to be documented, and approved ones are to be implemented. Some organizations may have a Change control board (CCB) which is the approving authority of proposed changes 

Project manager to be cognizant of Enterprise environmental factors (EEFs) and Organizational process assets (OPAs) that play a role at this juncture. 

Some of the tools and techniques that aid project managers are: 

• Expert judgement
• Project management information system (PMIS)
• Meetings

Major outputs of this step are: 

• Deliverables in the form of a product, service, or a result
• Work performance data like activities completed, key performance indicators (KPI), cost incurred, status of deliverables, actual duration taken to achieve deliverables 

Project managers and project teams in the social sector are good at this step due to their strong connection with various stakeholders and thematic knowledge. However, only a few social organizations have adopted technology for PMIS, have structured systems like change control board, etc., 

Step 4: Manage Project Knowledge

This is another step in the executing stage with 2 major purposes towards achieving project objectives. 

1. Use the existing knowledge 
2. Create new knowledge 

This step enables an organization to utilize existing knowledge for the current project’s outcomes and the knowledge generated during the current project can be used for future projects. 

Projects commonly manage two types of knowledge. 

• Explicit – knowledge that is easily communicative, documented, and shared. This can be codified using words, pictures, and numbers. This type of knowledge is easy to pass on to others as it is available in written form and accessible to others. In a scenario where the project has acquired large data that is processed, findings are organized in a structured way for easy interpretation by the reader. This is stored and can be retrieved.  
• Tacit – knowledge that is gained by personal experiences and difficult to express. One’s beliefs, insights, and experience. It is difficult to express such knowledge, document it, and present it to others in a tangible form.  

Explicit	Tacit
Objective	Subjective, cognitive
Can be structured and organized	Personal to an individual
Easily documented and codified	Difficult to capture and codify
Easy to share	Difficult to share

Managing project knowledge is quite challenging. Just documenting the knowledge and making it accessible, doesn’t ensure the transfer of knowledge among project staff. A common misconception is to document knowledge at the end of the project in the ‘lessons learned register’ so that it can be used in subsequent projects. The project may be able to document explicit knowledge but will lose tacit knowledge. 

It Is in the interest of an organization to create an atmosphere where staff are motivated to share their knowledge that enables others to learn from the experiences of knowledge holders. 

Major outputs of this step are: 

• Lessons learned register
• New knowledge created by the project, can improve project deliverables. Also, any processes are piloted and found to be successful, the Organizational process assets (OPAs) are updated

Project managers of the social sector are good at ensuring explicit knowledge related to project work is shared with the team. However, the sector needs to adopt documentation techniques like ‘lessons learned register’, creating forums where Tacit knowledge is shared within and outside the teams. 

Ensuring the knowledge acquired during the project is transferred uniformly across the organization by proper documentation and circulation. Missing functions like a dedicated project management office (PMO) and staff attrition (most of the staff are hired on a project basis and leave when the project closes) compound the problem of knowledge sharing.

Step 5: Monitor and Control Project Activities

Moving from the ‘Executing stage’ to the ‘Monitoring and controlling stage’, the project manager and the team track the project’s progress to ascertain whether the project is heading towards achieving its objectives or not. It involves tracking the actual performance, reviewing it against the planned performance, reporting the progress, and taking appropriate corrective action. 

Stakeholders are updated on the state of the project, any actions initiated to correct performance issues, and where the project stands in terms of cost and schedule. 

Monitoring is a systematic process of continuous observing, collecting data, measuring, and assessing measurements and trends. 

Each project defines its work performance metrics for scope, schedule, budget, and quality while preparing a project plan. While the project is being executed, work performance data is collected as part of monitoring activity and passed on to control activity for analysis and decision-making. 

Monitoring may include the following activities:

• Project milestones and deliverables are tracked against the set target
• Assessing the project’s actual performance against the project plan and to ascertain on the project meeting goals, objectives, and Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Verify whether the project timelines are adhered to the project schedule
• Keeping a watch on project scope and ensuring no unauthorized changes are done and avoiding ‘scope creep’
• Keeping a watch on individual project risks 
• Tracking the project expenditure and comparing it with a planned budget 
• Checking the quality of deliverables against the set quality standards

Control means determining corrective or preventive actions based on the data collected and analyzed during the Monitoring process.

Control may include the following activities:

• Analyze the data collected during the monitoring phase
• Ascertain if the project is on track or identify any deviations
• Take corrective decisions or preventive decisions 

The decision-making could also include changes to plan, cost, and schedule 

Thus, monitoring helps observe and identify a project’s progress whereas control helps in decision-making. The benefit of this step is to ensure the project is running on track as planned. It helps the project meet its goals and objectives. 

Some of the tools and techniques that aid project managers in monitoring and control are: 

• Expert judgement
• Data analysis techniques like Alternative analysis, Cost-benefit analysis, earned value analysis, Root cause analysis, Trend analysis, and Variance analysis

Major outputs of this step are: 

• Work performance reports
• Change requests for corrective, or prevention activities 

In the social sector, this term is referred to as ‘monitoring and evaluation’ and is applied to all projects. Donors make it mandatory for data collection and reporting purposes. Hence, project managers are familiar with the tools and techniques for this step. Established organizations in the social sector have designated teams with professional expertise to handle the monitoring and evaluation process. 

Step 6: Manage Integrated Change Control

The popular belief is that “Change is inevitable”. This applies to project management as well. Most projects work in a dynamic environment. Change requests are a certainty and can come from different stakeholders – internal or external. Technological advancements, social, political, and economic factors, or shift in priorities of stakeholders may mandate a change. 

The onus is on the project manager to evaluate and prompt a decision (as per the laid project norms) either to accept the change or reject it. This is essential to keep the project moving in the right direction.

This is a process of systematically reviewing all change requests, evaluating them, and managing change by deciding on either to accept or reject the change request. 

Change decisions are communicated with all stakeholders and documented. 

Change control is significant to control project activities, avoid scope creep, and ensure changes have a positive effect on the project duly considering the risk factors. 

Change requests can be raised only after the baseline is completed. Any stakeholder can request a change at any point of time in the project life cycle.  Changes can be to any of the project documents, or plans (project plan and subsidiary plans).

Either the project manager or project sponsor has the authority and responsibility of approving, rejecting, or deferring the change request. In case an organization has a change control board (CCB) established, all change requests have to be referred to the CCB, which is the decision-making body. 

Changes approved can lead to a revision in plans like activities, schedules, budgeting, and resource requirements. 

Some of the tools and techniques that aid project managers in integrated change control are: 

• Expert judgement
• Data analysis tools like alternative analysis and cost-benefit analysis
• Decision-making tools like voting, autocrat decision-making, and multicriteria decision analysis

Major outputs of this step are: 

• Project change requests

Step 7: Project Closure

The last stage in the project life cycle, project closure finalizes all the activities undertaken by the project.  

The project manager ensures that the project deliverables are accepted by the stakeholders including the project sponsor. 

The project information is archived, planned work is completed, project objectives are met, organizational team resources are released, admin tasks are completed, project documentation is updated, final payments are done, all costs are charged to the project and accounts are closed. 

The project plan is reviewed to ensure all planned activities are completed, results are communicated to the stakeholders, and all boxes are checked before officially closing the project. 

All agreements are verified and closed, lessons learned are identified and documented, knowledge sharing and transfer are completed, and an audit is conducted to ascertain whether the project is a success or failure. 

Any information that could help in improving the organizational process assets (OPAs) is obtained and shared with the respective unit. 

Transfer of deliverables like a product, service, or result to the next phase of operations depending on whether the project is extended or only the operations would carry on.

The project manager and team plan and measure stakeholder satisfaction. 

Project documentation is completed and reports as per the agreement are shared with respective stakeholder(s).

 Some of the tools and techniques that aid project managers in integrated change control are: 

• Expert judgement.
• Data analysis tools like document analysis, regression analysis, trend analysis, and variance analysis.

Major outputs of this step are: 

• Project documents are updated. Lessons learned register is of significant help in future projects.
• Project deliverable(s) – product, service, or result are transitioned to another agency or group for continued support for operating or maintaining it throughout its life cycle. 
• Final project report encapsulating project performance is prepared and shared. 

Project managers in the social sector are equipped with the support of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEAL), and communication teams in developing final project reports for sharing with stakeholders including the funder. Other support teams like finance, admin and procurement teams ensure the rest of the legal and financial aspects are taken care of. 

The major challenge the sector and organizations face are to ensure the continuing of services when the funding ceases.