Important Terms and Definitions - Monitoring & Controlling Project Work

As usual, let us wrap up the section on Monitoring & Controlling the Project Work by looking at the important terms and definitions we learnt as part of this section.

• Change control board - A formal group of stakeholders with the authority to process change requests, which includes reviewing, approving, rejecting, and delaying change requests.
• Change request - A request for deviating from the project plan or related policies or procedures, such as modifying scope, schedule, or cost. Change requests may include recommendations for corrective and preventive actions.
• Claim - An assertion, demand, or request made by a buyer against the seller or vice versa for consideration or compensation under the terms of a legal contract.
• Control - To analyze the performance and make and implement recommendations for corrective actions or other changes to bring the project back on track.
• Corrective actions - Actions recommended for execution in the future in order to bring project performance back in line with the project management plan.
• Monitor - To collect project performance information/data as planned, convert the information to performance measurements, and report the performance.
• Preventive actions - Actions to be executed to keep the project from getting off track—for example, to avoid risks or poor performance.
• Project performance - Measure of actual project progress against planned progress.

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Summary - Monitoring & Controlling Project Work

We have successfully completed the section on Monitoring & Controlling the Project Work. Let us summarize what we learnt about Monitoring & Controlling the Project Work.

• You need to monitor and control your project throughout its lifecycle, which includes monitoring and controlling project work, including procurements, performance, changes, quality, and risks.
• All these aspects of the project are monitored and controlled by using two high-level processes that belong to integration management:

o Monitor and Control Project Work and
o Perform Integrated Change Control.

• This also includes administering the procurement part of the project, which is another high-level process.
• The Monitor and Control Project Work process takes performance reports as input, compares them to the planned performance (baselines) in the project management plan, and, if needed, makes recommendations for changes to bring the project back on track.
• The change requests from this and other processes are run through the Perform Integrated Change Control process.
• Only the change requests approved through this process are implemented.
• Project procurements are administered by using many processes, including

o Perform Quality Control
o Report Performance
o Direct and Manage Project Execution
o Monitor and Control Risks and
o Perform Integrated Change Control.

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Next: Important Terms & Definitions - Monitoring & Controlling Project Work

Chapter 74: Monitoring and Controlling Project Work

Monitor and Control Project Work is a high-level process for monitoring and controlling project progress to ensure that the project is on its way to meet its objectives laid out in the project management plan. Some of the major tasks performed during this process are:

• Monitoring project performance by measuring it against the project management plan in terms of parameters such as cost, schedule, and scope
• Monitoring the project by collecting information to support status reporting, progress measurement, and predictions
• Evaluating performance to determine whether it needs to be controlled by taking corrective or preventive actions
• Monitoring risks by tracking and analyzing the already identified project risks and by identifying new risks
• Controlling risks by managing the execution of risk response plans when the risks occur
• Maintaining an accurate and timely information base regarding the project as it progresses
• Monitoring and controlling changes and monitoring the implementation of approved changes
• Monitoring and controlling quality and administering procurements

The Monitor and Control Project Work process is illustrated in the picture below:

Inputs to the Process:

The major input to this process is the performance reports, which are compared to the performance baseline in the project management plan. From this comparison, some changes may be requested as an output of this process, which may include recommendations for corrective actions, preventive actions, and defect repairs. The performance report consists of current project status, accomplishments, scheduled activities, forecasts, and current issues. This report is generated by using the Report Performance process which will be discussed in the next section.

Enterprise environmental factors used as input to this process include project management information systems, work authorization systems of the performing organization, risk tolerance level of the stakeholders, and industry and government standards.
The organizational process assets that can be used to perform this process include financial control procedures, the company’s communication requirements, management procedures regarding issues and defects, risk control procedures, process measurement database, and lessons learned from past projects.

Tools & Techniques used in this Process:

Apart from your expertise as project manager, there is no other tool or technique that is used as part of monitoring & controlling the project work.

Output of the Process:

As a result of performing this process, you may need to update some parts of the project management plan, such as scope baseline, schedule baseline, cost baseline, schedule management plan, cost management plan, and quality management plan. These updates often result from change requests made by various monitoring and controlling processes.

As mentioned earlier, change requests arising from monitoring and controlling the project or originating from any other source, such as the stakeholders, must be processed through the integrated change control process formally called Perform Integrated Change Control.

Actually, one of the important tasks of monitoring and controlling the project is to influence the factors that tend to circumvent the integrated change control process and ensure that only those changes that are approved through the integrated change control process are implemented.

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Next: Integrating Change Control

Chapter 73: Big Picture of Monitoring and Controlling the Project

You monitor and control your project by monitoring and controlling the project performance, changes, and risks. Monitoring includes measuring project performance, collecting information about project performance, and evaluating performance information to see the trends. Continuous monitoring helps the project management team identify the areas that need to be controlled closely by, for example, taking corrective or preventive actions.

Trivia:
Monitoring and controlling does not start only after the project starts execution. Rather, the project needs to be monitored and controlled all the way from initiation through closing. Just for the sake of following the PMI Specification on process grouping, the Monitoring & Controlling Process Group is separate but monitoring happens throughout the life of the project.

A project is monitored and controlled using the Monitor and Control Project Work and Perform Integrated Change Control processes, which are high-level processes performed by executing more specific processes, such as cost control, schedule control, and scope control. All these processes are in the monitoring and controlling process group except the Directing & Managing Project Execution process, which belongs to the executing group

The picture below explains the process group

As illustrated in the picture above, work performance information generated by the Direct and Manage Project Execution process is used by most of the monitoring and controlling processes. The Control Scope, Control Schedule, and Control Cost processes analyze this information to generate work performance measurements, which are used by some other processes, such as Perform Quality Control and Report Performance. The Report Performance process generates performance reports, which are used by the Monitor and Control Risks and Administer Procurements processes. One obvious output of most of these processes is the change requests, including recommended corrective and preventive actions, which go through the Perform Integrated Change Control process for approval. If approved, the execution of these actions and changes is managed using Direct and Manage Project Execution, a process in the executing process group.

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Next: Monitoring & Controlling the Project

Chapter 72: Introduction to Monitoring & Controlling Project Work

Let me begin by congratulating you on completing 3 process groups: The Initiation group, Planning group and the Execution Group. At the end of these 3 phases, we have planned our project efficiently and acquired a team to execute the project. Once the project execution begins, our work isn’t over. In fact, it has just started. We need to continually monitor and control our project; that is, monitor and control the project activities against the project management plan and project performance baseline.

This is because executing a project means executing the project work according to the project management plan based on some baselines, such as a schedule baseline, a scope baseline, and a cost baseline.

This is what we are going to do in this part of the PMP Exam Preparation. “Monitoring & Controlling the Project”.

What is Monitoring & Controlling?

In general, monitoring means watching the course, and controlling means taking action to either stay the course or change the wrong course. 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.

In addition to the schedule activities that need to be executed, the project management plan also contains a list of risks and the risk management plan. 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 two high-level processes that belong to integration management: the Monitor and Control Project Work process and the Perform Integrated Change Control process. This also includes administering the procurement part of the project, which is another high-level process by its virtue.

So, in this part we will be covering these one by one.


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