An organization's project manager is in charge of planning, organising, and steering a project to completion. Before a project can begin, the management must assess the final outcome and estimate the necessary resources and costs, as well as create a budget, assign work, and set a deadline. The project can only begin after the pre-planning phase has been drawn out and completed.
Nowadays, successfully monitoring and controlling a project is a difficult endeavour. I'm sure each of us uses a variety of approaches to maintain project control. However, without this control, about 70% of the project fails catastrophically. And if the project is done effectively, either you spent more money (i.e., over-budgeted) or you spent more time (i.e., under-budgeted) (i.e., behind schedule). Both of these scenarios are bad for a project manager. So, the bottom line is, what should the project manager do to save the project from this awful situation? Controlling the project's pricing, schedule, and scope is a difficult task. These three project restrictions will inevitably cause issues for your project. Be on the lookout! You're doing fantastic if you can keep these three baselines (scope baselines, schedule baselines, and cost performance baselines) in good shape.
Handle Project Monitoring and Controlling Processes:
As a project manager, you take on a significant amount of responsibility that can feel more daunting than rewarding at times. When successful project monitoring and control are a crucial component of your job responsibilities, however, it's critical to develop and refine project monitoring and control best practises.
- Control risk -
Risk can occur at any time and in any part of your project. You can't state as a project manager that you'll solely check risk during the monitoring and controlling stage. Clearly not!!! Risk should be assessed as soon as the project is launched. For the project manager, it is a never-ending task.
- Control schedule and control cost -
You should be able to regulate the schedule and expense of your project using Earned Value Management (EVM). You know your CPI (Cost Performance Index) and SPI (Schedule Performance Index), and you can monitor and control the project based on the CPI and SPI results. If your CPI is positive or greater than 1, you are doing well in terms of project costs, and if your SPI is positive or greater than 1, you are doing well in terms of schedule.
- Perform quality control -
Before sending the product to the customer, double-check that you are delivering the goods in the quality that the consumer expects. You can use a variety of quality tools or processes to accomplish this, such as Root Cause Analysis, Pareto Chart, Control Chart, Histograms, and so on.
- Administer Procurement -
You must keep every relevant stakeholder up to speed on the project status because you are managing a major project with many stakeholders. Specifically, you must update the project progress report with information such as: where are you in the project's development? What are the projections for your project?
- Report Performance -
You must keep every relevant stakeholder up to speed on the project status because you are managing a major project with many stakeholders. Specifically, you must update the project progress report with information such as: where are you in the project's development? What are the projections for your project?
- Verify scope and control scope -
In most cases, scope verification happens after quality control. When quality control approves your project deliverable, it will be moved to the verify scope step. Your customer will check the scope to see if the deliverable meets all of the requirements, and if it does, the deliverable will be moved to the customer's site. If not, the deliverable will have to be revisited throughout the production stage. You should maintain scope control throughout the project life cycle as a project manager. It's not as if you start controlling the product once the deliverable is complete; it's an ongoing process. You should take extra precautions to ensure that the scope requirement does not escape your grasp.
- Perform integrated change control & Monitor and Control Project work -
ollowing project planning, you must begin working on the project in accordance with the plan, and it is now imperative that you double-check that you are working in the same manner as intended. Because you planned your project based on the information you had at the time (Rolling Wave Planning), it's inevitable that it will alter as work goes (which is why planning is iterative and gradually elaborated). Good project managers usually try to avoid modifications and, if they do occur, govern them efficiently by balancing the baselines. Discuss your options with the consultants, other SMEs, senior management, or any other project stakeholders, including your customer. Change is necessary, but it is not always essential. Change requests that have nothing to do with the project's requirements should be ignored.
- Find out the exceptions -
Finding any deviations from established processes would be simple with the right monitoring tools. However, relying too heavily on these technologies might lead to blind spots, allowing potential dangers and concerns to go unnoticed. So be on the alert for any problems and have a solid contingency plan in place, because despite thorough monitoring and control, unexpected events can occur.
- Try to be flexible -
It's pointless to monitor a project if you're unwilling to make changes to the original goals. These modifications may be minor or, depending on the circumstances, may require you to re-plan the entire project. The fundamental goal in either scenario is to complete the project and the duties as efficiently as feasible.
- Use correct tools -
Using project management software is the most effective way to apply project monitoring and control techniques. The ideal way to go is to use Earned Value Analysis (EVA), Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), Gantt Charts, and other tools early on in the project. Tools for project collaboration and secure communications can also help with project monitoring and control.
- Make the project more engaging -
With visual clues, better engagement, and collaboration, tools may make the tedious process of monitoring and regulating more appealing. The use of Kanban can aid in project management efficiency. The emphasis on visual involvement can help both the workers and the project manager participate more actively. Because, let's face it, who has time to read long, cluttered reports?
- Setup project parameters -
icromanaging every facet of a project is difficult, if not impossible. What you require is a method for determining when you must intervene. Setting up monitoring milestones with tools like CPM or Gantt Charts can help you set up goalposts from which you can track the project's overall development.
- Make budgets and forecast -
For milestone management and project monitoring, project forecasting and budgeting are useful tools. You can use forecasting to answer a variety of key issues, such as when the best time is to complete a project, how much a specific activity will cost, and how long it will take. Furthermore, with proper forecasting, you'll know ahead of time what kind of adjustments you'll need to make in terms of human resources, optimal workstations, and so on during a project. Going into a project blind might leave your project insecure and without a context to monitor and measure its progress against. You'll be able to prioritise key actions if you have precisely defined deliverables and know how much slake time you'll have.
Why is it so important to control and monitor projects?
When it comes to project management, any competent project manager will tell you that fulfilling deadlines isn't the only factor to consider. It's just as crucial how you meet deadlines as it is how you achieve them. Monitoring and controlling are the most effective tools for assessing real performance and making informed decisions to guarantee quality standards are met. Managers can take decisive and corrective action with updated information to avoid a crisis and be aware of any potential opportunity that may arise during the work process. This is accomplished by providing project managers with status updates and overseeing project operations, allowing them to achieve a balance between time, cost, quality, and budget.
Conclusion
In an ideal world, all of your projects would run smoothly. Everything would be finished on schedule and on budget. In reality, however, employees may miss deadlines due to personal emergencies, external stakeholders may withdraw without explanation, and so on. You can discover and minimise concerns that could affect the project scope, quality, timetable, or budget by using project monitoring and assessment. After that, you can utilise the information to improve processes for future projects. Monitoring and controlling project work entails comparing actual project performance to project management activities that have been planned. It can primarily be seen as a control function that occurs at all stages of a project, from inception to completion. Monitoring and controlling project activities is a relatively simple undertaking for small projects. Project Management, on the other hand, is more stringently necessary for major projects, where the project manager must make a systematic effort to monitor and regulate how the processes are progressing. In huge projects, he or she will not be personally involved in project activities.
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