When studying for the PMP exam you should consider using a PMP simulation program to help you. You can use such program to study in the same environment as test day and maximize your study efforts. There is a special at the website www.pmsimulation.com which I used to pass the PMP exam.
Project integration and professional responsibility are some overarching processes and concepts in project management. Creating the project plan is actually done after you have completed all the other planning activities that were discussed in this workbook, such as scope planning, schedule development, or planning for quality. The project plan is the written document that describes these plans, and may refer to the actual planning documents you created in the other planning activities. Executing the project puts your project plan into action. You monitor your results, and take any course corrections to get the project back on track. Sometimes you may even decide you can change course, based on what you learn from performing the planned work. Change control lays out the systems, processes, and documentation you will use to manage the changes that are inevitable on a project. During all phases of your project, the organizational structure influences how much authority and action you can take on your project. Understanding how that structure affects your ability to get things done helps you understand your project management role. Last, professional responsibility describes your ethical obligations and educational growth responsibilities to the project management profession. You may practice every portion of project management impeccably, but if you do not practice it with the best ethical intentions, then you probably will have only short-term success as a project manager. It is important to understand what the Project Management Institute expects from you as a project manager. These processes bring all the other processes together as an umbrella function of project management.
Project Integration Management is covered in the Planning, Executing and Controlling process groups objectives of the PMP exam.
There is a point in time on a project when you have completed the planning and are ready to start executing the plan. This point is when one of the project integration management processes—project plan development—is performed. Project plan development takes all the information created in the previous planning processes and integrates it into one comprehensive document that will serve as a guide during project execution and control. This document usually has the formal approval of the project stakeholders. The previous planning processes we described (in earlier chapters) are the processes performed in the other eight knowledge areas. These are processes such as scope planning, schedule development, cost budgeting, quality planning, staff acquisition, communications planning, risk management planning, and procurement planning. There are 21 total planning processes that are incorporated into the project plan.
