Integrated master plan In the United States Department of Defense , the Integrated Master Plan ( IMP ) and the Integrated Master Schedule ( IMS ) are important program management tools that provide significant assistance in the planning and scheduling of work efforts in large and complex materiel acquisitions . The IMP is event - driven plan documents the significant accomplishments necessary to complete the work and ties each accomplishment to a key program event . The IMP is expanded to a time - based IMS to produce a networked and multi - layered schedule showing all detailed tasks required to accomplish the work effort contained in the IMP . The IMS flows directly from the IMP and supplements it with additional levels of detail — — both then form the foundations to implement an Earned Value Management System . In civic planning or urban planning , " Integrated Master Plan " is used at the levels of city development , county , and state or province to refer to a document integrating diverse aspects of a public works project . Purpose and Objectives . The primary purpose of the IMP — and the supporting detailed schedules of the IMS — is their use by the U . S . Government and Contractor acquisition team as the day - to - day tools for the planning , executing , and tracking program technical , schedule , and cost status , including risk mitigation efforts . The IMP provides a better structure than either the Work Breakdown Structure ( WBS ) or Organizational Breakdown Structure ( OBS ) for measuring actual integrated master schedule ( IMS ) progress . The primary objective of the IMP is a single plan that establishes the program or project fundamentals . It provides a hierarchical , event - based plan that contains : Events ; Significant accomplishments ; Entry and exit criteria ; however it does not include any dates or durations . Using the IMP provides sufficient definition for explain program process and completion tracking , as well as providing effective communication of the program / project content and the " " What and How " " of the program . Rationale . The IMP is a collection of milestones ( called " events " ) that form the process architecture of the program . This means the sequence of events must always result in a deliverable product or service . While delivering products or services is relatively straight forward in some instances ( i . e . , list the tasks to be done , arrange them in the proper sequence , and execute to this “ plan ” ) , in other cases , problems often arise : ( i ) the description of " complete " is often missing for intermediate activities ; ( ii ) program partners , integration activities , and subcontractors all have unknown or possibly unknowable impacts on the program ; and ( iii ) as products or services are delivered the maturity of the program changes ( e . g . , quality and functionality expectations , as well as other attributes ) — — this maturity provided by defining " complete " serves as an insurance policy against future problems encountered later in the program . Often , it ' s easier to define the IMP by stating what it is not . The IMP is NOT BASED on calendar dates , and therefore it is not schedule oriented ; each event is completed when its supporting accomplishments are completed , and this completion is evidenced by the satisfaction of the criteria supporting each of the accomplishments . Furthermore , many of the IMP events are fixed by customer - defined milestones ( e . g . , Preliminary or Critical Design Review , Production Deliver , etc . ) while intermediate events are defined by the Supplier ( e . g . , integration and test , software build releases , Test Readiness Review , etc . ) . The critical IMP attribute is its focus on events , when compared to effort or task focused planning . The event focus asks and answers the question " what does done look like ? " rather than what work has been done . Certainly work must be done to complete a task , but a focus solely on the work hides the more important metric of " are we meeting our commitments ? " While meeting commitments is critical , it ' s important to first define the criteria used for judging if the commitments are being met . This is where Significant Accomplishments ( SA ) and their Accomplishment Criteria ( AC ) become important . It is important to meet commitments , but recognizing when the commitment has been met is even more important . Attributes and Characteristics . The IMP provides Program Traceability by expanding and complying with the program ' s Statement of Objectives ( SOO ) , Technical Performance Requirements ( TPRs ) , the Contract Work Breakdown Structure ( CWBS ) , and the Contract Statement of Work ( CSOW ) — all of which are based on the Customer ' s WBS to form the basis of the IMS and all cost reporting . The IMP implements a measurable and trackable program structure to accomplish integrated product development , integrate the functional program activities , and incorporates functional , lower - level and subcontractor IMPs . The IMP provides a framework for independent evaluation of Program Maturity by allowing insight into the overall effort with a level - of - detail that is consistent with levied risk and complexity metrics . It uses the methodology of decomposing events into a logical series of accomplishments having measurable criteria to demonstrate the completion and / or quality of accomplishments Requirements Flowdown . A Government customer tasks a Supplier to prepare and implement an IMP that linked with the IMS and integrated with the EVMS . The IMP list the contract requirements documents ( e . g . , Systems Requirements Document and Technical Requirements Document ( i . e . , the system specification or similar document ) ) as well as the IMP events corresponding to development and / or production activities required by the contract . The IMP should include significant accomplishments encompassing all steps necessary to satisfy all contract objectives and requirements , manage all significant risks , and facilitate Government insight for each event . Significant accomplishments shall be networked to show their logical relationships and that they flow logically from one to another . The IMP , IMS , and EVMS products will usually include the prime contractor , subcontractor , and major vendor activities and products . Evaluation of an IMS . When evaluating a proposed IMS , the user should focus on realistic task durations , predecessor / successor relationships , and identification of critical path tasks with viable risk mitigation and contingency plans . An IMS summarized at too high a level may result in obscuring critical execution elements , and contributing to failure of the EVMS to report progress . A high - level IMS may fail to show related risk management approaches being used , which can result in long duration tasks and artificial linkages masking the true critical path . In general , the IMP is a top - down planning tool and the IMS as the bottom - up execution tool . It should be noted , however , the IMS is a scheduling tool for management control of program progression , not for cost collection purposes . Relationship to other Documents . The IMP / IMS are related to the product - based Work Breakdown Structure ( WBS ) as defined in MIL - STD - 881 , by giving a second type of view on the effort , for different audiences or to provide a combination which gives better overall understanding . Linkage between the IMP / IMS and WBS is done by referencing the WBS numbering whenever the PE ( Program Event ) , SA ( Significant Accomplishment ) , or AC ( Accomplishment Criteria ) involves a deliverable product . Reporting Formats . The IMP is often called out as a contract data deliverable on United States Department of Defense materiel acquisitions , as well as other U . S . Government procurements . Formats for these deliverables are covered in Data Item Descriptions ( DIDs ) that define the data content , format , and data usages . Recently , the DoD cancelled the DID ( DI - MISC - 81183A ) that jointly addressed both the IMP and the IMS . The replacement documents include DI - MGMT - 81650 ( Integrated Master Schedule ) , DI - MGMT - 81334A ( Contract Work Breakdown Structure ) and DI - MGMT - 81466 ( Contract Performance Report ) . In addition DFARS 252 . 242 – 7001 and 252 . 242 – 7002 provide guidance for integrating IMP / IMS with Earned Value Management .