As evident from the title itself, it’s a process that tracks the actual project performance with the planned project management activities. Manage, and Control process is a control function that takes place at all stages of the project – from Initiation through Closing. The key benefit of this process is that it allows the Stakeholders to understand the current state of the project, the steps taken, and budget, schedule, and scope forecasts.
Through the process of Monitor and Control, the project manager must be in a position to balance the requirements that arise from different knowledge areas. For example, the project manager can undergo situations, where a project is completed on-time, but, it has failed to meet the quality standards mentioned in the project management plan. Likewise, the project might have a significant scope, but unfortunately, it has exceeded the time and cost limit. Hence, the process of monitoring and controlling project work is considered extremely important.
Let’s discuss the inputs, tools and techniques and outputs involved in the monitor and control project work process –
The subsidiary plans and the project baselines form the basis of controlling the project, as it mainly involves focusing on all the aspects of the project. The PMP includes the following subsidiary plans which are explained under the process of developing a project management plan.
The assumption log contains information about expectations and pain points identified as affecting the project.
Basis of estimates indicates how the various estimates were borrowed and can be used to decide on how to respond to the difference of opinion.
Based on the project’s previous performance, the cost forecasts are used to determine if the project is within defined tolerance ranges for budget and to identify if any necessary change requests arise.
The issue log is used to document and monitor who is responsible for resolving specific issues within a scheduled date.
The lessons learned register might contain information on effective responses for variances and corrective and preventive actions.
The milestone list shows the scheduled dates for particular milestones and is also used to check if the planned milestones have been accomplished.
The quality report includes quality management issues; which are also known as suggestions for the process, project, and product improvements; corrective actions recommendations (includes rework, defect/bugs repair, 100% inspection, and more); and the summary of findings from the Control Quality process.
The risk register provides details on the threats and opportunities that have occurred during the execution of the project.
The risk report provides information on the overall project and specified individual risks.
Based on the project’s earlier performance, the schedule forecasts are used to determine if the project is within the defined tolerance ranges for schedule and to identify any necessary change requests.
Work performance data is an output of the Direct and Manage Project Work process where the data is collected, analyzed, and integrated to produce work performance information for providing a sound foundation for taking project decisions. With the Performance information, the project manager can gain knowledge on status deliverables, implementation status for change requests and provide forecasted estimated time to complete.
The procurement agreement includes terms and conditions, and may also integrate other items that the buyer specifies regarding what the seller is to perform or provide. If the project is outsourcing part of the work, the project manager needs to oversee the contractor’s work to make certain that all the agreements meet the specific needs of the project while adhering to organizational procurement policies.
The Enterprise Environmental Factors are conditions that are not under the control of the project team. They vary widely depending on the nature of the environment and are as follows:
Includes aspects like, regulatory agency regulations, codes of conduct, product standards, quality standards, and workmanship standards which influence the process of monitoring and controlling the project work.
The level of skills, disciplines, and knowledge, such as design, development, legal, contracting, and purchasing capabilities of the organization that influence the monitoring and controlling process.
A crucial aspect at any given stage of the project work. The project manager should understand the tolerance level of the stakeholder as to how much negative impact can he sustain during the project’s lifecycle.
Acquiring knowledge of standardized cost estimating data, along with the industry risk study information, and risk databases from the previously undertaken projects to have a better understanding of the current project working procedure.
PMIS are system tools and techniques used in project management to deliver information. Project managers use the methods and tools to collect, combine and distribute information through electronic and manual means.
Organizational process assets are the plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases specific to and used by the performing organization. Organizational process assets may be grouped into two categories:
The Processes and Procedures under the organizational process assets can be segregated into three stages –
Implementing guidelines and criteria’s used for tailoring the organization’s standard processes and procedures to satisfy the specific needs of the project.
Effective planning of organizational standards such as policies, product and project life cycles and methods to maintaining quality policies and procedures are necessary for monitoring and controlling the project.
A method to change the existing control procedures and also to document how the changes are approved and validated. The process also includes keeping a tab on the financial control procedures, issue and defect management procedures, organizational communication requirements, Change and risk control procedure along with Process measurement and lessons learned database.
During the closing stage, the project manager will monitor the project closure guidelines, which includes focusing on the lessons learned, final project audits, evaluations and product validations.
The organizational knowledge base for storing and retrieving information includes;
The knowledge base will comprise of various versions and baselines of the policies, procedures and project documents. The knowledge base also includes financial databases containing information on labor hours, incurred costs, budgets, and project costs overshoot.
A project manager should also know historical information and lessons learned from previous project records and performance. For a project manager, should also have corporate knowledge of the issues and defects so that he/she can control and resolute the same in any problems arise.
Finally, the corporate knowledge base also should have information on components that include insights into the process measurement databases and information on the project files from previous projects (Ex. scope, cost, schedule baselines and project calendars)
To ensure that the project performances matches the expectation, the project manager, in collaboration with the project management team uses expert judgment to interpret the information provided by the monitor and control processes. These expertise insights must be taken from individuals or groups who are specialized in the topics like;
Earned Value Analysis,
Interpretation and contextualization of data,
Techniques to estimate duration and costs,
Trend analysis,
Technical knowledge of the industry and focus area of the project,
Risk management, and
Contract management.
Data analysis techniques that can be used include but are not limited to:
Alternatives analysis is used to select the corrective actions or a combination of corrective and preventive measures to implement when a deviation occurs in the project management process.
Cost-benefit analysis helps to determine the best corrective action regarding cost in case of project deviations.
Earned value provides an integrated perspective on the scope, schedule, and cost performance.
Root cause analysis focuses on identifying the main reasons for a problem. It can be used to determine the reasons for a deviation and the areas the project manager should focus on in order to achieve the objectives of the project.
Trend analysis is used to forecast future performance based on past results. It looks ahead in the project for expected slippages and warns the project manager ahead of time that there may be problems later in the schedule if established trends persist. This information is made available early enough in the project timeline to give the project team time to analyze and correct any anomalies. The results of trend analysis can be used to recommend preventive actions if necessary.
Variance analysis reviews the differences (or variance) between planned and actual performance. This can include duration estimates, cost estimates, resources utilization, resources rates, technical performance, and other metrics.
Variance analysis may be conducted in each Knowledge Area based on its particular variables. In Monitor and Control Project Work, the variance analysis reviews the variances from an integrated perspective considering cost, time, technical, and resource variances about each other to get an overall view of variance on the project. This allows for the appropriate preventive or corrective actions to be initiated.
A decision-making technique involves all the individuals, project management teams, and stakeholders to agree upon a single decision through the process of voting. This will enable the project to operate within the project management scope.
Meetings may be face-to-face, formal, informal or virtual. It might comprise of project team members stakeholders and others involved in the undertaken project. The main agenda is to circulate information regarding the project and to make sure that the expectations are clearly understood and met.
When both the planned results and actual results are compared, change requests will direct the project to expand, adjust, or reduce in the project and product scope, quality requirements, schedule and cost baselines. These changes will pave the way for the collection and documentation of new requirements and can impact the project management plan, documents or product deliverables.
Note: All changes that meet the project’s change control criteria should go through the integrated change control process established for the project.
Change requests may include the below-mentioned aspects:
A deliberate activity that realigns the performance of the project work with the project management plan
An intended activity that ensures the future performance of the project work is associated with the project management plan
A calculated activity to modify an unusual product or product component.
These are the physical representation of work performance information compiled into project documents, focused on generating decisions, actions, and awareness. To maintain, store and distribute information, representation in the form of a project document is necessary. These work performance reports are a sub-division of project documents, and these reports may be provided for key stakeholders.
Changes identified during this process may affect the overall project management plan. These changes, after being processed through the appropriate change control process can lead to project management plan updates. Project management plan elements that may be updated include are
Scope management plan
Requirements management plan
Schedule management plan
Cost management plan
Quality management plan
Scope baseline
Schedule baseline
Cost baseline
Project documents that may be updated include:
A document that stores information on the schedule and cost limit of the concerned project.
A document that contains the information on the number of hours that have been spent, the quality standards that have been met and the overall ability of the team.
A document that contains the information about all the issues that arose during the project monitoring and controlling process and the time taken to resolve the issue and the outcome of the action taken.
Changes are bound to occur during a project. There are scenarios where even those well-drafted plans, will have varied results when compared with the actual planned values. Hence, performing the Monitor and Control Project Work process is essential to determine those changes. Monitor and Control Project Work process is crucial to meet the desired outcomes of the project. Because if one doesn’t measure the performance, they will not be able to know how the project is going, and this is a significant risk for the failure of the project.
