The Monitoring and Controlling
process oversees all the tasks
and metrics necessary to ensure that the approved and authorized project is
within scope, on time, and on budget so that the project proceeds with minimal
risk. This process involves comparing actual performance with planned
performance and taking corrective action to yield the desired outcome when
significant differences exist. Monitoring and Controlling process is
continuously performed throughout the life of the project.
The primary results of the Monitoring and Controlling processes
are the project performance reports and implementing project changes. The focus
for project management is the analysis of project performance to determine
whether a change is needed in the plan for the remaining project activities to
achieve the project goals.
Project Communication
Tools and Techniques
Earned
Value Analysis
Pulse Meetings
Pulse
meetings are short team status meetings where the project management team is
able to gather project performance information about the activities that are
underway. These meetings should occur frequently and can either be face-to-face
or virtual. Normally they are only a few minutes in duration. During the
meeting, the beginning and completion of project activities is reported. In
addition, the status of any activities that are underway is communicated to the
rest of the project management team. Issues on any of the ongoing activities
are identified; however, the issue resolution occurs at a separate meeting with
the appropriate individuals present. The issue resolution meeting may
immediately follow the Pulse meeting, but it is clearly a separate meeting and
those project team members who are not needed for issue resolution do not need
to attend.
Variance Reports
Variance
reports are formal reports generated by the PMIS, by the Earned Value
Management System, one of the other business management systems - such as the
quality control system, or by a project supplier. Variance reports compare what
has actually happened on a project against what was expected to have happened
on the project. The variances can uncover both positive and negative project risk.
Program Reviews
Program
Reviews are meetings with the project team members and sub-project leaders that
review the current status of the program as compared to the original program
plan. The question being asked is whether the program activities and the
sub-projects are likely to interfere with each other.
Technical Reviews
Technical
Reviews are formal meetings conducted with subject matter experts who are not
members of the project team. These are in-depth reviews focused upon a
technical aspect of the project. Examples would be Design Reviews, Code
Reviews, Security Reviews, or Production Readiness Reviews. The reviewers
should perform an in-depth analysis of the project deliverables and activities
to determine whether the project work has been accomplished completely and
correctly. These reviews will normally generate a list of actions that must be
completed. These actions may require additional testing or analysis. In some
cases it may even require redesigns of systems, software, processes or
products. The results of these reviews are normally reported to senior
management at the next Management Review.
Control Procurements
This
process is part of the Project Procurement Management knowledge area. It
involves managing contracts and monitoring performance of subcontracted work.
Key outputs of this process are work performance information and change
requests. Inspections and audits are typically performed in this process.
Control Communications
This
process is part of the Project Communications Management knowledge area. It
involves making sure the communications needs of stakeholders are met
throughout the project. Therefore, outputs such as work performance information
and change requests are part of this process. And, as expected, meetings are
critical to this process.
Project Forecasting
Project
Forecasting consists of taking the project status information and extrapolating
the current project performance to the end of the project. Forecasts can be
made with respect to project duration, overall project cost,
performance/quality level of project deliverables, or any combination of these.
A key element in forecasting is to review the risk events that occurred and the
remaining risk triggers.
When
forecasting project duration, the key is to understand the schedule performance
and schedule risk of the activities on the critical path. Those activities will
be the ones that drive the project completion date. On a resource constrained
project, or a project with unpredictable resource availability, this can be
very difficult because the lack of resources causes the critical path to vary.
Project Dashboards
Dashboards
have proliferated as more organizations start to manage projects within the
context of a portfolio of projects. A dashboard is a great method for capturing
a snapshot of a project and presenting that to stakeholders. Dashboards contain
a small subset of project status information that is used as indicators of
whether the entire project is on track. The dashboard information is used to
make decisions concerning changes to projects or to the project portfolio.
Change Management Log
Change Management Log This tool is very
straight-forward. The need for it increases as the project complexity increases.
The necessity on a Complex project is because these projects are managed as a
set of focused and full-scale sub-projects. The boundaries between these
sub-projects will inevitably need to change as projects progress. Sometimes the
changes are due to shifting milestones. Sometimes the changes are the result of
activity deliverables that are passed between the projects. In any case, the
changes in one sub-project cascades into changes in another sub-project. The
Change Management Log tracks the implementation of the change across the
sub-projects. It can also track the implementation of the change within a
project, especially if the project activities are conducted in multiple
locations or if there are multiple phases underway at one time. Using the
Change Management Log is similar to using an action item list. Each item is
tracked to ensure it has been completed.
References:
IS
445/645-Introduction to Project Management Slides
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