Monitoring & Control

Monitoring & Control Process group:

Monitoring means watching the course. 
Measuring & collecting work performance data.
Reviewing data by comparing against PMP and creating work performance information.
Reporting on work performance information to project manger and other relevant stakeholders.

Controlling means staying the course. 

Proposing corrective &/or preventive &/or defect repair actions as Change Requests to Perform Integrated Change control process.
Based on approval from Perform Integrated Control approval ensure implementation of corrective &/or preventive action to either stay the course or change the wrong course.
Controlling – uses data from monitor activity to bring actual performance to planned performance

You monitor the project by generating, collecting, and distributing information about project performance against the baselines. Performance reports are used to monitor and control the project work.

Deviations of performance results from the plan might indicate that some changes to the original project plan are required. Other change requests might come from stakeholders, such as expanding the project scope by adding new requirements.

You control all these changes by influencing the factors that generate them, processing them through a system called the integrated change control system that contains a process called the Perform Integrated Change Control process, evaluating their impact across the project, and ensuring the implementation of the approved change requests.

You monitor the risks by looking out for the risk triggers (the alerts that tell you a risk has occurred or is about to occur) for the already identified risks and by identifying new risks as the project progresses.
You control the risks by executing the risk response plan and taking corrective and preventive actions.

Quality is an integrated part of any project. Therefore, monitoring and controlling the project work includes controlling the quality.

All these aspects of the project are monitored and controlled by using three high-level processes that belong to integration management:

• Monitor and Control Project Work process 
• Perform Integrated Change Control process.
• Administering procurement.

 

 1.  Monitor The Work

Once the team is executing the work according to the project plan, the project manager must always be diligent in monitoring and tracking the work that is being performed.
This is done in order to:

• Ensure the team is working on the correct activities
• Ensure the team is on-schedule
• Ensure the team is on-budget
• Ensure the quality of the work is acceptable
• Ensure project control activities can be performed if deviations from the plan are identified

The monitoring project management step is done in parallel to the other project processes (planning, execution, etc.) to ensure those activities are also being done in order to meet the project requirements. Considering that most of the project activities (and costs) occur during the execution phase, however, you should put most of your monitoring effort on this part of the project. You may have to assign additional personnel to help you with monitoring the work that is performed. Often a project controls person is assigned to help (on larger projects) with this activity.

Specifically, you MUST monitor the following:

1. Schedule progress:
   • What is the status of the activities that have been scheduled for this (week, month etc.)?
   • How are activities progressing? Ahead, behind or on-schedule?
   • Are any course corrections required?
2. Budget:
   • How much of the budget have you spent to date?
   • How much is remaining?
   • Do you have a revised estimate to complete the work?
3. Scope:
   • Is your team working on activities that are in-scope or out-of-scope?
   • Have any changes occurred that will require a scope addition?

There are additional things, such as Key Performance Indicators, that you may want to monitor throughout the project but the ones mentioned above are the bare minimum. It is very important to monitor the progress on the project to ensure it does not get too far off of your original plan. Once you veer away from your plan, it can be very difficult (sometimes impossible) to get things back on track with the original plan.
As with other aspects of the project, you must determine the frequency in which you are going to monitor project activities. Monitoring is really an on-going activity, however, you have to strike a balance between how much time you spend tracking activities (you do not want to micro-manage your team) and the value of the effort. I would not recommend collecting cost & schedule information, for most projects, any more than once per week, or any less than once per month. This is a general guideline that will work well for most projects.

2.  Control The Project

Controlling the project is the next critical project management step that you absolutely must do in order to deliver an effective project. Controlling the project refers to the actions that you take as the project manager to ensure your project progresses according to the plan and actions you take when a change to the original plan is required.
For example, if you find that your project schedule is slipping (behind schedule), you may decide to apply some sort of schedule compression technique as a control mechanism. The term ‘schedule compression technique’ simply refers to methods used to shorten your schedule, which may include adding additional resources to get the task done or moving the task in parallel to another one. Another example might be if you find, as a result of your monitoring step, that you are trending over-budget, you may look at control mechanisms such as doing work in-house that might have been planned for a consultant (if more expensive), utilizing a lower-cost resource to complete the work etc.

Controlling can be a very challenging part of the project manager’s job description and often very difficult decisions have to be made. The key thing to remember, however, is that it is much easier to control your project if you haven’t let it get too far ‘out of control’ first, that is, too far away from your original plan. This relates to the monitoring part, and underscores the need to make sure you are monitoring the progress of the project.
Changes to the original project execution plan are inevitable. Changes will always occur to your project, so you must be flexible and be able to manage the changes as they occur. It is an important job of the project manager to identify all changes from the original project scope – this is referred to as change control. Managing change is one of the most challenging areas of project management and if left unchecked can result in projects that run off the rails. Often times, project managers are blamed for being behind schedule and over-budget, but often, this is the result of changes that have crept into the project and were not properly managed by the project manager.
Once approved, the change should then be incorporated into all other areas of the project including the budget and schedule. This process sounds very simple and straightforward, but I have seen many times where this has not been managed efficiently, with very bad consequences! I speak from experience here as well, as I’m sure any experienced project manager can relate to. Once a change is approved, the associated work activities are then monitored & controlled like any other project activity.
I highly recommend you adopt a change control procedure where changes are identified, formally documented in a change order and then approved by the appropriate stakeholders. I highly recommend using the following templates to help you monitor and control the various aspects of your project: