What is Integrated Project Management and How to Implement Successfully?

Integrated project management is an approach that uses various tools and techniques to streamline processes and make them more effective. Instead of working on several different projects simultaneously, integrated project management involves working on one main task for the duration of its life cycle.

It allows you to effectively plan, coordinate, monitor, and review work from every participant in one place. The result is, thus, more effective planning, streamlined communication, and a more efficient process overall. In this article, we will explore the benefits of integrated project management and provide details about how it differs from traditional project management methods.

Even with growing demand for more effective ways to run organizations and manage projects, most people need help with implementing integrated project management in their organizations. After reading this article, we hope that’s not the case anymore!

What is integrated project management?

An integrated project approach combines elements from project management with other functions, such as IT, HR, marketing, sales, and finance. It’s about optimizing resources and processes to deliver the best results possible. Organizations can use a project approach to improve their performance and results. It can help reduce costs, increase profits, improve quality, and better manage risk and all projects within your organization.

Integrated project management is a method of using a variety of techniques and tools to create a more efficient process. In other words, it’s an attempt to combine your project management processes in one place, with each process optimized for the benefits it brings to a project. For example, in traditional project management, you spend much time getting approvals for work and documenting the decision-making process. Both processes could be more helpful in getting the job done. So, in integrated project management, you bring together the process of planning (who does what), the process of getting approvals for work (who makes the decision), and the process of getting the work done (what does it look like in practice). By bringing together each of these processes in one place, you can more effectively use them to direct the work of your project team.

Why is integrated project Management critical?

The reason why you want to integrate your project management processes is to make them more effective. Integrated project Management involves using various techniques and tools to create a more efficient process. By bringing together your project management processes in one place, you can more effectively use them to direct the work of your project team.

Benefits of Integrated Project Management

Here are the key benefits you and your organization can gain from implementing Integrated Project Management

  • Reduced costs: One of the main benefits of integrated project management is its potential savings. Reducing the number of people required to manage small projects and cutting the associated overhead can save companies money.
  • Better planning: Integrated Project Management allows you to better plan work by bringing together project planning and resource management.
  • Better communication: Integrated Project Management allows you to better communicate with your stakeholders by bringing together communication management, stakeholder engagement, and project reporting.
  • Better scheduling: Integrated Project Management allows you to better schedule work by bringing together resource management and time management.
  • More efficient project execution: Integrated Project Management allows you to execute work more effectively by bringing together project execution, monitoring, and review.
  • Better quality: Similarly, improved quality and service can also be achieved with an integrated project approach. It helps improve the quality of work delivered and leads to improved customer satisfaction and retention.
  • Better team engagement: Integrated Project Management allows you to better engage your team members by bringing together engagement management, team performance management, and team engagement.
  • Improved risk management: Integrated project management can help to reduce risk. It is essential in situations where there is a lot of risk within an organization, but a project needs to address it explicitly.
  • Better resource utilization: By sharing resources across projects and reducing duplication of efforts and resources, integrated project management can help optimize the use of resources across an organization.
  • Improved governance: Integrated project management can help improve an organization’s control by ensuring that all projects are aligned and contributing to the organization’s overall success.

Also read, waterfall project management

Challenges in implementing integrated Project Management

Here are the common challenges to keep in mind when implementing Integrated Project Management:

  • Lack of analytics: One challenge organizations often face a need for more analytics to support the new approach. Understanding how the data will be used to ensure a successful transition is essential.
  • Lack of change: It can be easy to stick to traditional ways of working and thinking, even though these will only work as effectively in the present. It’s essential to be open to new ways of working and thinking to succeed with integrated project management.
  • Cultural resistance: It is essential to be aware of some organizations’ cultural resistance when implementing integrated project management. This can vary from a slight resistance to a full-blown resistance.
  • The role of the project manager: It is crucial to understand the part of the project manager in an integrated project approach. It can be challenging to identify the right person for the job, and it can be easy to forget why you are doing it in the first place.

How to implement an effective integrated Project Management framework

It is essential to start by identifying your organization’s key projects. Then, you can begin to look at how different projects can work together to achieve a common goal. Using a framework can be helpful in this regard. It can also help you identify areas where you have gaps and areas you need to improve.

At the start of each project, you’ll want to identify what success looks like for that particular project. As the project progresses, you’ll look for opportunities to bring in other projects to help achieve that success. Each project should be built with future project dependencies in mind. It will help you to forecast future demand for resources and help you to plan for future growth. When you’re managing multiple projects, you’ll want to be sure to measure the impact of all of them. This allows you to see where the impact is coming from, which can help you to identify areas where you need to improve.

How to build a successful Integrated Project Management team in an organization

When you think about building a successful integrated project management team in your organization, you need to think about the following:

  • Identify your key projects: As we mentioned above, it’s essential to identify the key projects in your organization. Once you have recognized these, you want to start looking at other projects that can be brought in to help facilitate these projects.
  •  Identify critical roles:  Once you have identified which projects need support, you want to identify which parts are best placed to support those projects. Again, this will help you to identify areas where you have gaps and areas that need improvement.
  • Find the suitable projects: It is essential to select the right projects to support. You don’t want to select any project to support. Instead, you want to select projects relevant to your organization’s key projects. It will help you to identify areas where you have gaps and places where you need to improve.
  • Train the team: It is important to ensure that you have the proper training for each role. It will allow you to support each project to the best of your ability.

Conclusion

Project management is a critical function that involves managing the planning, execution, and control of projects to meet missions and goals. A successful project management strategy can help organizations deliver high-quality products or services on time and within budget. Project managers have many challenges and responsibilities, including making business and technical decisions, planning work, managing people, and monitoring outcomes.

Project managers must have a comprehensive project management strategy that addresses these challenges and responsibilities. Integrated project management (PM) is an effective strategy to help organizations overcome these challenges and responsibilities.

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