PMP Certification: Project Integration Management Tips


Project Integration Management is the first knowledge area of project management.

It includes a group of processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly coordinated.

Based on chapter 4 of PMBOK® Guide 5th Edition, here you will find:

  • project management graphic of Project Integration Management, a usefull reference guide with the best tips to master its core concepts
  • Project Integration Management tips — by Project Integration Management processes

Read on!

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Project Integration Management Tips

by Project Management Process Group

1. Develop Project Charter

  • Sponsor Vs. Customer Vs. Project Manager. The sponsor of a project is in charge of creating the project charter. The sponsor of a project pays for the project—in consulting or procurement situations is often the same person as a customer or client, the person who uses the product of the project. The project manager manages the project.
  • Agreements. The exam sometimes mentions the agreements as “contracts“, even though not all projects have contracts.
  • Project selection. There may be three types of questions on the exam about project selection:
    • direct, project selection mentioned openly as core of the question
    • indirect, project selection relates to business case
    • distracting, project selection concepts as distractions in questions on other topics, to mislead you.
  • Deviations from Baselines. Incomplete risk identification and risk management often cause changes from the baselines created during planning. So, choose the answer that implies a review of the risk management process whenever the exam asks you what to do if a project deviates remarkably from the performance measurement baseline.
  • Develop Project Charter Vs. Identify Stakeholders. Develop Project Charter and Identify Stakeholders are the two initiating processes in the PMBOK® Guide. Develop Project Charter process, though, must be executed first because its input — project charter — features as output for the Identify Stakeholders process.
  • Project Statement of Work (SOW). Important but not mandatory input, there is no need for SOW in presence of business case, contract, or agreement.
  • Enterprise Environmental Factors Vs. Organizational Process Assets. In a certain way, enterprise environmental factors are elements limiting the project, while organizational process assets support it.

2. Develop Project Management Plan

  • Gantt Chart. The Gantt chart is a scheduling and communication tool, not  the project management plan.

3. Direct and Manage Project Work

  • Direct and Manage Project Work. If the exam mentions the direct and manage project work, it may not mean the entire executing process group but it may refer to the integration piece of executing.

4. Monitor and Control Project Work

  • Expert Judgment. Subject matter experts provide the expert judgement mentioned in the PMOK Guide. Whereas they may include also the project manager, the expert judgement is not an executive decision of his.
  • Validate Vs. Verify. Validation implies that the product, service, or system meets the needs and requirements of the customer and other important stakeholders—kind of external process. Verification entails that the product, service, or system complies with documented regulations, specifications, or imposed technical conditions—kind of internal process.
  • Flow of information. Progressive development of information from work performance data to work performance information, concluding with work performance reports.

5. Perform Integrated Change Control

  • Project Constrainsts. A project manager can always make a change to its project without implementing change control if this modification has no impact on the project constraints—cost, schedule, and scope.
  • Work Performance Data Vs. Information Vs. Reports.
    • work performance data, raw information
    • work performance information, raw information analyzed, contextualized, and incorporating the integrated nature of project management
    • work performance reports, information customized for a particular group of stakeholders.

6. Close Project or Phase

  • Closing. Every project always needs to end, regardless of the context under which it stops, is terminated or is completed.
  • Flow of Deliverables.
    1. Created in Direct and Manage Project Work process
    2. Verified as correct in Control Quality
    3. Inspected and accepted by customer in Validate Scope process
    4. Formal recognition by client with sign off in Close Project or Phase process
  • Lesson Learned.
    • The Project Management Institute (PMI) values lessons learned as one of the most important organizational process assets in project management.
    • A project manager should collect lesson learned information at the end of each phase and not to wait until the end of the project.
  • Flow of Contractual and Administrative Closure. A project manager completes contractual closure first, then administrative closure.


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