Enjoy this video of my free online PMP Exam Preparation training course and prepare to sit and pass the PMP certification exam from PMI. This PMP training video is based on PMBOK6 (PMBOK Guide) and covers the first part of Integration Management knowledge area including the “Develop Project Charter” process.
Hello and welcome to my video on the first knowledge area in the PMP exam prep which is integration management integration management is very close to the framework of project management and it takes you all the way from where the project starts all the way through where the project closes if we look at the seven processes that are in integration management you’ll see that it starts with developing the project Charter which is in it which is basically the first document that the PM would have to work on and then we go to developing the project management plan direct and manage Project Work manage project knowledge monitor and control project work perform the integrated change control and then close project or phase let’s take a look at each and go into the details but before we do this I want to bring your attention to certain things when you think that would help you in studying for the PMP exam take a look at these charts that are shown here what you’ll notice is that these are the processes and they demonstrate inputs tools and techniques and outputs right if you look at the tools and techniques on all of these right you’ll notice that almost all of them have expert judgment listed in there a lot of them have meetings listed in there some of some of them have project management information system so these are things that repeat all through so basically you just need to know them once and then you’re good to go for the rest of your study meetings you know what they are and there’s going to be different types of meetings that you need to conduct as well as project management information system that refers to MS Project Primavera or any of the software tools that you use for managing your project and expert judgment refers to people who are specialists in that specific process so regardless of what the process is there’s bound to be someone who can help you in that specific process all right so if we talk about scheduling then there is someone who knows the software tool for scheduling someone who knows how the organ typically does its scheduling someone who is able to provide your estimates and so that subject matter expert or the expert judgment is not necessarily the same one every single time it is a different resource potentially different resource or expert that would help you in that one specific process now take a look at the inputs right most of the inputs have organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors let me explain these to you because you only need to know them once as you study and you don’t really need to look at them anymore organizational process assets are those assets related to processes that have been developed within the organization so templates procedures change management processes knowledge bases that have been compiled over time lessons learned issue management process these are processes that are well documented and a mature organization would typically have so if you have these are considered organizational process assets and they would help you in managing your project going forward so you don’t need to figure them out from scratch enterprise environmental factors are aspects of your project that are specific to you environment so inside your organization the culture the mindset the the management structure the mentality that you have are they mature not mature these are the things that are internal to your organization that are part of your environment that would affect your ability to manage the project right and outside of that take a look at government rules policies political stability cash availability currency trends availability of supply of some products or some specialized skilled resources these are the things around you that would affect how well you’re able to manage the project so you just need to know the enterprise environmental factors sometimes referred to as EEF and the organizational process as also refer to as OPA and you know you need to know them once and you’re good to go you don’t need to reread them regardless of different small perspectives all throughout the pin book but you don’t really need to relook at them from this point on other things that you’re going to notice is the in the outputs that there’s always after the first few outputs after the first few processes once a project management plan is developed you want to see the project management plan being updated and project documents being updated right so this is going to be visible throughout most processes and basically anything that happens in your project is going to require that your plan is updated as well as related documents will have to be updated along with that you’ll see in most of the monitor and control processes that there’s a change request there right so a lot of times when we try to monitor and we try it and we see something is going wrong and we try to fix it we control it by making changes and so that’s very common to see as an output there okay so other things that you will also notice is that once something is produced in a process like a project management plan it becomes an input into a different process once the Charter is developed it becomes an input into other processes so those you already know what they are so it looks like a lot of inputs tools and techniques and outputs but your focus should be on the unique inputs tools and techniques and outputs that are specific to that one process rather than one rather than the ones that you already know so that’s how that’s how I would look at it things that I already know I’m not gonna bother looking at looking at them again instead I’m going to focus on those new terms or keywords that are going to show up new tools and new tools or techniques new inputs there’s barely going to be any new inputs throughout right most of these inputs that you’ll see are probably outputs from a process before hopefully this little segment that I just described helps you in how you study along the way all right so let’s start with integration management let’s talk about what integration management is integration management is about pulling all the pieces together so you as a project manager you need to make sure that all the deliverable due dates of that product service or result the lifecycle the benefits management plan are all aligned with the strategic goals of the organization you need to come up with a plan that would help you achieve the project objectives you need to be involved in the creation and use of knowledge retention and knowledge management to make sure that what you’re collected right now and what information you have now can be reused at a different time in your project you also need to monitor and manage the performance of your project all through to make sure that you’re bringing things back on track in case they start to slide away from where they’re supposed to be and that means you need to work with change management all through all right aside from that you’ll be collecting data and results that you have achieved you will be analyzing that data to get some information and communicating this information in the form of project management reports or project status reports to your senior management you’ll need to make sure that all of the work of the project has been completed that every phase is formally closed that contracts are eventually closed once all once all the work is done and then the project as a whole is being closed now the more complex the project is and the more the variety of expectations from different stakeholders or locations or nature of work the more you have to exercise integration management let’s look at the first process in integration management this is to develop the project charter so what is the Charter the Charter creates a direct link or partnership between the team that is managing the project and the organization that is requesting the project the approved Charter formally and officially initiates the project and many organizations use it they sometimes call it not just a project charter they call it a project brief a project initiation document so the there’s a variety of names that are out there but it authorizes the p.m. to plan execute and control that project with the resources that they’ve been allowed to use the project manager should be identified and assigned as early as possible to the project in order to ensure maximum or optimal success on this project the Charter can be developed by the sponsor or the PM or together they can develop this and both of them should sign that project Charter now projects typically when they’re initiated they could be initiated for different reasons so for example a sponsor may have requested the work to be done or the PMO could be initiating this work or it could be from the portfolio management function there is usually a business need when a project is initiated or it could be a contract that has been signed it could be a mandate from middle management for example HR asking for some application or software to be used for payroll or for managing sick days right that could be a request that comes from middle management like HR asking the IT team to work on that specific project mind you a project Charter is not considered a contract because this is an internal document it is not one that is signed with external parties one of the inputs as I mentioned would be a business case what a business case is it’s a study of viability and benefits and cost associated with an initiative along with a study of the risk associated with it the timeline milestones of benefits sometimes organization will go and develop a benefits management plan that outlines all of the benefits that they can expect from this one project so if that study has been done with consideration for what could go wrong sensitivity of this one project and expected milestones and cost and so on that would be the basis for the scope of this one project if it is approved that’s the basis of for the scope of the project and the timelines that I expected and even a starting point for the risks that have been thought about when the business case was developed other than that it could be just a simple agreement or contract signed with a contractor which NEC initiates the project for them all right so we will not look at enterprise environmental factors or organizational process assets at this point because these have been explained and as I recommended once you’ve already looked at these you do not really need to keep looking at them but by all means if you have time and you want to look at them then please do but if you have a short period of time for you to get your PMP certification then maybe these are areas that you don’t really need to focus too much on because you heard you know what they mean right expert judgment as you can see is going to be tucked into anyone who has developed a project charter at any point can be asked about supporting this project going forward and maybe they’ve developed a charter maybe they’re familiar with this type of project but you need to find people who are quite familiar with the nature of this one project that can help you put some estimates or help you understand what resources you might need or even help you fill out a form if your organization has a project charter form you will need to brainstorm with a few people few of your colleagues you’ll need to have interviews with some of with the sponsor or the champion who is asking for this project just to understand what the requirements are you might have to run little focus groups with some of your own management or operations or other engineers small groups just to understand expectations from this one project before you put them into a project charter and start promising any kind of outcome so if you find that there are conflicts and what people think the expectations are then you need to facilitate a good solution for that you may need to run a few meetings to make sure that everyone is thinking on the same page before you start working on this specific project the final outcome of you doing this will be to prepare a project Charter and it looks like this template that you see here on the side what what a project Charter has is the key objectives that are expected from this project starting from where the project should start and the project should finish obviously it is a title for this one project you name the PM you put their contact details you write some of the key objectives like what is that what is the scope of this project what is it that is what what do you expect it to do so let’s say your project is about moving 100 cubicles from building a building B then that’s going to be stated in your project objectives that you that this project is to move 100 cubicles from building to building beam and along with that you put the timeline how you know how many days how many weeks or by when this needs to be done what is the budget that has been allocated to this what are the justifications fly’ weird for why we’re doing this and along with this you may want to write some additional bits and pieces of the scope so you might say the scope includes you know packing of the you know the boxes for the cubicles movement of the furniture moving of the network cables movement of equipment so you just want to put some high-level bullets of what is expected on this project and if you can put some milestones that can be expected very high-level milestones maybe three or four or five maximum five maybe milestones that you would like to meet and that would make management comfortable that this move will happen as they would like and list them there and after that list who the keys they call this would be that you will need support from in order for you to execute on this project a lot of times this information would have been obtained from the sponsor in advance before you sit down to do this one project charter so these key stakeholders are typically internal to you and you will need their support such as HR purchasing facilities these are or security team these are the ones you’re going to need support from as you execute on a project they are not the team that will work on the project but there are functions within the organization that you need support from now if you can get them to sign this project charter that will be great and actually we highly suggest that you get signatures from resource managers those who are going to provide you engineer or technical resources that you will need to execute on the project you are better off getting signatures or official commitments from them because that’s going to come in handy later on right along with that at the very end of this charter you can put some assumptions that you’ve made as you prepare this so for example you would have that you you’re assuming that you would have access to the building for the move after hours maybe you’re assuming that the elevators can support moving this type of furniture and so on so these are assumptions that you have in mind when you were preparing the Charter along with that you want to list some constraints that you know of limitations so for example you’re only allowed to move furniture after 6:00 p.m. or maybe an or movement of anything needs can happen on on the weekends so or maybe all external consultants would need to get a permit or pass before they can come in not consultants movers all external movers will need to have some access pass or permit before you can do the moving right so if that’s the case these are considered constraints that you need to take note of as you execute on the project finally you want to list a few high-level risks that you are aware of that pertain to this type of project so in the case of moving you may want to consider things such as you know there’s always a possibility that items could be damaged or things may not fit in the elevator or that I don’t know figure out what could go wrong along the way you don’t want to do a massive or intensive risk analysis you just want high-level risks that you might know are things like you know you know resources may not be sufficient for the move or resources may not show up at the right time or you may not get the permit to do the move so not an intensive risk analysis but very basic high-level risk assessment of what could go wrong with this specific project all right so that’s the project Charter and that would get us to the next process which is develop project management plan
