Introduction

Integrated Project Management (IPM) has evolved over many years. It owes its form and processes to the concepts and practices developed by project managers, and to managerial developments in other areas.

The collaborative project team emerged out of many team-focused managerial experiences, but it particularly owes its procedures to the concept of the self-managing work team. Self-managing work teams became significant in the late 1980s and have found a place in american industry. Consensus decision-making skills and collaborative leadership are self-managing work team practices.

Conflict resolution practices emerged out of modern industrial psychology and mediation practices. Good communication practices come from basic modern management. The affinity diagram is derived from modern quality initiatives. Elements of risk analysis were drawn from Taguchi's method of designing experiments to identify inputs that most affect the output of a process.

Discipline and order methods are taken directly from contemporary lessons for line supervisors. Discussions of Hewlett-Packard management styles led to the focus on walk-about management. It was John McConnel of Worthington Steel who reminded all of us to talk to each other.

The product of all of these concepts and practices has led to the creation of Integrated Project Management (IPM), and it works very well. IPM works for basic projects, but there are many projects that are too large and too complicated to be managed as basic projects. Basic projects can be the foundation for all projects; however, additional management structure is necessary for managing larger, more complicated projects.

Two levels of project management structure provide the framework for all projects above the basic project level. For us, it has been useful to classify projects as basic projects, major projects, and macro projects. However, the terms “basic project,” “major project,” and “macro project” are not widely used in project management literature.