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.