Summary - Monitoring & Controlling the Golden Triangle

We have reached the end of the discussion on Monitoring and Controlling the Golden Triangle. Let us summarize what we have learned so far.

• You need to monitor and control your project throughout its lifecycle, which includes monitoring and controlling performance.
• In an ideal world, there should be no changes to or variations from the planned baselines, such as cost, schedule, and scope baselines.
• A good-quality project is completed within the planned cost, schedule, and scope.
• However, in the real world, there are changes and variations, and therefore quality needs to be monitored and controlled, which involves monitoring certain project results by making measurements and taking actions based on those measurements.
• The three project parameters: cost, scope, and schedule are collectively known as a triple constraint because if one of them changes, at least one of the other two parameters must change.
• Therefore, project monitoring and controlling includes monitoring and controlling these three parameters, which involves measuring cost, schedule, and scope performance and taking actions based on performance.
• The most commonly used technique to measure cost and schedule performance is known as the earned value technique (EVT), also called earned value management (EVM), and it measures performance by comparing the earned value of the actual work performed to the actual cost and to the planned value that was supposed to be earned according to the plan.
• You incur cost in executing the scheduled work.
• So performance is also measured in terms of performed work or schedule performance.

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