monitoring and controlling process in project management

monitoring and controlling process in project management

Monitoring Process :

There are formal and informal methods for monitoring, and they need to be used judiciously. Many times, tailoring guidelines are used during the project planning stage, which will decide the type of method to be adopted. For example, the tailoring guideline can suggest that complex programs should go through a formal method while simple programs can be monitored through an informal method. This saves time and adds value to the project management; productivity increases without sacrificing the quality of end deliverables. The formal method involves the usage of mails, recordings minutes of a meeting, progress reports, etc., for future reference. This helps in knowledge management and sharing of best practices across team members as well as across projects. Here, a process can be established so that people can commit themselves to the monitoring process. This way, their schedule is booked and made available for the purpose. The disadvantage is that time spent on documentation and waiting for all the members to be made available for a meeting (because of other commitments) can be seen as wastage of time. Some examples of the formal methods are group review (where a work product is reviewed by several peer members), customer review of design specifications, etc.

In the informal method, documentation may not be a must, but work products are reviewed by peers and defects are closed. In small teams and simple programs, this method works the best. Some examples are one-to-one informal discussion, discussion during team outings, etc. This method does not yield data that can be used in future projects and is best suited for experts working in small size projects that have less chance of being repeated. This type is not very much recommended for software projects.

Control Process :

Monitoring can be successful only if an effective control process is being used. Based on results from monitoring, control mechanisms need to be applied for getting the desired result. For example, the monitoring process would indicate that there are deviations in the effort spent till design phase; this means that actual effort spent till the design phase is more than the planned effort till that phase. To remedy the deviation, the control process would implement some of the activities that would reduce cumulative deviation in the subsequent phases so that by the end of the project, the total effort deviation is reduced to zero or is kept under control. A list of these action items is discussed in detail in the section "Monitoring Process—An Example."

During the project In the planning phase, the project manager plans for review activities and milestone analysis. In the project plan, a clear mention of the role or person responsible for reviewing different work products is mentioned. This not only makes the control process formal but also makes it focused and the reviewers are committed to the monitoring and control process. Reviewers' calendars are booked and made a

I made available for these activities. The frequency and the persons who would get the reports of the monitoring and control should also find mention in the communication protocol defined in

project manager