Managing Project Integration

Denis F. Cioffi PhD

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9781567261349
• eBook ISBN: 9781567264524
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Apply today's best practices for managing information, processes and people to maximize success within the constraints of project cost, scope and schedule. Benefit from the most effective real-world methods and new tools, such as resource breakdown structures and new treatment of optimum duration, earned value, and integration. Plus, you'll explore a conceptual approach that will help you integrate the most crucial element for project success: people.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to the Calculus of Integration

By definition, integrators seek to include. Although written mostly within the context of a single project, this book takes a broad view of integration, beyond the limited notion of a coherent approach only to a project’s triple constraint of budget, schedule, and scope. The historical foundation of mathematical integration turns out to have relevance to modern knowledge management and hence, modern project management. Thus, we begin by examining the meaning of the term integration and discover that a co-inventor of calculus was 300 years ahead of his time in thinking about knowledge management.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

At least several papers in the literature (e.g., see Bibliography notes 4, 5, and 28), as noted in Meredith and Mantel [21] discuss particular templates for the traditional coordination of budget, schedule, and scope. And while project management texts recognize the importance of integration, most give a only few pages to its explicit mention. In his discussion of the growth of project management from its “traditional” ways, Kerzner [18] writes that “modern” project management demands integration skills of its practitioners, and he quotes several specialists who testify to the critical importance of these skills. Kerzner also reminds us that the global project manager faces especially difficult integration problems.

The Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK^®) [25] advocates the standard approach to “project integration management,” dealing with plan development, execution, and change. In contrast, this book views integration as expressed in 1967 in a classic paper in the Harvard Business Review [19] as “the achievement of unity of effort.”

The authors of “New Management Job: The Integrator” did not use the words “project management,” which they may not have recognized as a discipline in 1967, but they indicated the primary area that the integrator should handle: “the nonroutine.” They also anticipated “rapid rates” of change that would drive organizations to operate “like R&D-intensive firms”—in other words, companies would work with projects, and projects need integrators.

More than 30 years later, in a special series by the Industrial Research Institute dedicated to Succeeding in Technological Innovation, another author discussed management of the “innovation process” and wrote that it requires “a dedicated full-time coordinator-integrator,” who should communicate well and be skillful both technically and in business. [22]

Whatever the description and whatever the locale, effective integration management in projects comprises two inherent components: hard work and a good attitude (which itself often requires hard work). Good project plans are not static until after the project ends. Project changes mandate continuous iteration and integration of project plans. As Frame observed, reluctantly but realistically, “between 50 and 65 percent of our project budgets is dedicated to chasing paper.” [13] Much of this paperwork, now with a huge electronic component, is rightfully driven by the integration concerns of managing the project and its plans and personnel.

A SPECIFIC YET GENERAL CONCEPT

Analogous to the worries of a project manager watching the real-time changes of any project variable affecting the triple constraint, the branch of mathematics called calculus deals with (among other things) varying rates of change. In project management, one deals with costs, schedules, and scope, which can change frequently, sometimes erratically. Change is a fact of project life.

In calculus, to integrate means to sum, and one approximates reality with more accuracy by summing finer and finer elements. In project management, only by bringing together cost, schedule, and scope elements in sufficient detail can one produce a true picture of a project.

Project managers should view their projects as systems. Leibniz, a cofounder (with Newton) of calculus, conceived of integration mathematics broadly. In fact, Leibniz is credited with the conception of a formal system. [6]

Leibniz described the integral technically as “the sum of all lines,” but more generally he saw his creation as a structure “for the acquisition and organization of knowledge.” [9] And that’s what project integration is all about: Data, information, and knowledge related to all aspects of a project are acquired, organized, and assembled to present a coherent picture of the project’s status. In today’s parlance, these efforts are called knowledge management. In a project environment, one must also manage the people who can provide or transmit relevant information. Thus, project integration management harnesses the tool of knowledge management to pursue unity of effort.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AS INTEGRATION MANAGEMENT

The words “integrate” and “integration” have meanings outside the sphere of mathematics. To integrate means to “make entire or complete,” and integration represents creating the whole “by adding together or combining separate parts.” [8]

If only some fraction of a project’s separate parts is being managed, a project is not being managed in an integrated manner. An individual may feel responsible for a budget or a schedule or a scope—but who integrates and begins managing the project? Even if the fraction approaches 100 percent, the project is not necessarily being managed systematically (i.e., as a system). If not integrated, the project is, by definition, only partially managed. To say, therefore, that one is managing a project implies integration management.

The expanded notion taken in this book sets an even higher standard. If a project manager integrates budget, schedule, and scope, but is not concerned with the so-called stakeholders and the people on the project team, the integration task is incomplete.

The following chapters describe particular areas within the management of a project where integration is especially important, or where a certain tool or process furthers integration efforts. Chapter 2 examines the concept of knowledge more thoroughly and begins the discussion of integration management with the idea of sharing information from the start. Much of integration occurs in the development of the project plan, and thus the major section of this book, Chapter 3, is devoted to this topic. Chapter 4 takes a new look at earned-value analysis, which is a major integration tool.

In the context of integration, Chapter 5 looks briefly at people issues, and Chapter 6 discusses integrity. In many ways, the most difficult and important discussion takes place in Chapter 6. If all the project’s processes and special techniques are planned and prepared correctly, but there is no integrity, the project will fail.

CHAPTER 2

Integration through Shared Information

Project integration begins with sharing information to combine the budget, schedule, and scope consistently. This chapter treats briefly the differences between data, information, and knowledge, and it suggests at what organizational levels each should be shared. Three paths to project integration are noted, and a possible explanation of the big difficulty in integrating large projects is offered. Finally, some guidelines for presenting information are placed in the context of managing projects.

DATA, INFORMATION, AND KNOWLEDGE

With only a slight narrowing of meaning [8], one can say that “data” are the numbers taken directly from measurements. In the hierarchy of knowledge, data provide the firmament, the fundamental basis of all higher applications, and ultimately, one hopes, of decisions.

Data are the basic facts that will be used to begin to understand the project. Valuable data collection begins with an eye toward the triple constraint: cost data, schedule data, and scope data. In managing the project, especially in the execution stage, the project manager requires organized data that reflect the health of the project. These data will facilitate the integration of budget, schedule, and scope. Instead of a single schedule number (e.g., “the project is three weeks ahead of schedule”), the project manager asks for many numbers presented coherently.

The data must therefore be somehow processed, or manipulated. They are organized, given a context. When sufficiently organized, they are considered factual. They have become information because by virtue of their organization they have “informed,” i.e., they have been transported from an isolated existence to reside in some structure where they communicate; they tell a story.

From its beginning in the late 20th century, information technology has enabled rapid communication and analysis of information. Information technology holds the potential to transform 21st-century life, including project management. Quick access to relevant project information should improve the integration of projects. For all but the smallest projects, the project manager should be able to depend on assistants to collect data and begin their transformation into the “information” the project manager needs.

“Knowledge” sits another level up on the hierarchy that has data at its base. Similar to the manner in which data are transformed into information, information can be transformed into knowledge. This transformation process is, however, more formal. Information is codified, and so its context is determined with more structure than the corresponding data transformation (to information). With this formality, knowledge is seen as the intellectual perception of information. [8] Knowledge of a project may also include a subjective judgment based on objective information.

Managing projects in an integrated manner means managing information. But will this recognition and deeper understanding change behavior? Placing project management number-crunching in this framework implies that project managers and their hierarchical superiors should provide conditions that encourage, at a minimum, sharing data to improve project integration. Even better conditions encourage communications that turn shared data into information. Information should be shared within and across projects and programs.

With much additional effort, the shared information can be filtered, sharpened, archived, and made accessible to all in the organization. In other words, the information should be transformed into knowledge. From the perspective of knowledge management, effecting this transformation is the major objective of an organization’s project management office. Business strategists see knowledge as the basis upon which modern organizations grow and prosper. Establishing this process takes resources, and maintaining the culture requires a commitment from senior management.

Furthermore, the commitment can be expanded to communicate new knowledge to the project management profession as a whole. The Project Management Institute has recognized this responsibility for its members (e.g., in its Role Delineation Study, 24). Professions advance as their practitioners replace standard practices with best practices. This large-scale professional maturation can occur only if the best practices are distilled and communicated.

New knowledge does not help current or future projects succeed until the knowledge is utilized. Utilization begins with understanding, which sometimes requires bringing together heretofore disparate pieces of knowledge. This ability to create understanding through synthesis resides in people, and a good project manager wants people on the project team who can acquire, understand, organize, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About the Author
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Calculus of Integration
• CHAPTER 2 Integration through Shared Information
• CHAPTER 3 Project Plan Development
• CHAPTER 4 Execution and Closeout
• CHAPTER 5 Integrating Personnel and Other Interested Parties
• CHAPTER 6 Integration and Integrity
• Bibliography and Notes
• Index