later we agreed on a schedule fitting onto one side of A4 – at that point we started making progress.
(Craig and Jassim, 1995: 26) The people who need to understand the plan include those who are respon- sible for carrying out each task within its scheduled time.
There are a number of ways of monitoring a project during its progress to identify any emerging risks or potential for improvement. Monitoring is essential to collect appropriate information to inform the project manager about anything that threatens to disrupt the project, and to stop it from pro- gressing according to the plan. Once the project manager knows that there is a problem, a decision can be taken about how to address the problem. Action can be taken to ensure that activities are kept in line with the plan, or the plan can be changed. Taking action to control the project ensures that the focus is kept on achieving the outcomes within the budget and timescale agreed.
The word ‘control’ sounds very authoritarian and inflexible. However, control in projects is essential if outcomes of the right quality are to be achieved within the time and budget agreed. All projects need investment of resources to take place at all, and staff are often well aware of the need to make good use of scarce resources. Control is part of effective management and is a key responsibility of a project manager.
the project will not meet its targets because progress is too slow, or if a delay in one activity will impact on others, causing waste and further delay. Control may be regained either by taking action to change the progress of the activities that vary from the plan or by revising the plan to accommodate the variation in the progress of activities. It is not ‘cheating’ to change the plan, because the environment is always changing and new information becomes available as a project progresses.
Control is about monitoring progress and taking timely corrective action.
However sound your project plan, it is certain to need adjusting and updating as you go along. There are several techniques that help to make this possible.
Project plan
Collect monitoring information Control - make
decisions and take action to revise plan
Compare monitoring information with progress on project and identifying variance
Figure 10.1 A simple project control loop
The process of project control is a simple loop (see Figure 10.1). The four stages in this loop are:
1. The project plan. The plan is a dynamic collection of documents that show the current plan and also record successive changes in the plan.
2. Monitoring. This is the process of collecting appropriate information about the progress of the project and the setting in which the project is evolving.
3. Identification of variance. This is the process of comparing what is happening with the plan to identify any variation from the plan.
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4. Control. Decisions are made about how to address any variance. The risk register may already have identified potential responses. If this has not already been discussed, authority may have to be obtained before action can be taken. The two usual options are to invest more resources than were originally planned to enable tasks to be completed more quickly, or to extend the timescale to accommodate slower results than were planned. In either case the plan is changed and changes have to be recorded.
Expect change. Expect that as the project progresses there will be things that you will want to change within the boundaries of the project. There will also be changes in the environment of the project that will impact on the tasks and activities that are part of the project itself. Whenever a review of the project progress leads to a decision to make a change in the plan, it is essential to record the changes on the plan itself so that a master plan is maintained that is up to date. If you do not do this, you will be measuring progress against the original intention rather than against the revised plan, and there is great potential for confusion. If you always record changes to the plan you will maintain a ‘living’ document as the basis for continuing action.
Successful control of a project depends on the flow of information, so it is important to have systems in place to make sure that you get feedback on what is happening. However, monitoring is not a solitary activity carried out by the project manager. If the project team is meeting regularly to review progress, monitoring becomes more dynamic and changes to the plan can be achieved by consensus. Involving the team not only helps to keep everyone on target, it also builds commitment.
Monitoring is the most important activity during the implementation phase of a project because it is the only way in which you can control the work to be sure that the objectives of the project will be met. To keep track of what is happening you may have to consider gathering information on two levels: ‘big picture’ level, to include overall business objectives to which the project is intended to contribute and the balance of the dimensions of time, budget and quality, and ‘project activity’ level, to include tracking individual tasks; that they have been initiated, that they are running on track and that they are due to complete as planned.
In some ways it is quite difficult to pay attention to the ‘big picture’ issues when you are immersed in a project. It is easy to lose touch with what is happening in the rest of the organization, particularly when constant change means that people have little time to think of anything other than the imme- diate pressures of work. It is important to stay alert to the broad direction of change in your service or organization, because any projects within the set- ting should be helping to move in the right direction and not doing something that once seemed important but is no longer needed. It would be unusual for 120 Managing projects in human resources
a project to be so out of date that it was found to be completely redundant, but it is possible that some of the objectives were agreed before new infor- mation caused a slight change of direction.
You will probably have to use a variety of means to gather the information you need to track the progress of the project. Project status reports and project status meetings are formal reporting structures that enable you to collect and collate this information. However, if you rely on others to provide all your information you may miss early signs of difficulties. Many experienced project managers make a point of ‘walking the project’ to keep in touch with the day-to-day realities that emerge as work progresses.
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
What might you be able to monitor as a project manager by ‘walking the project’ that you would not know about from formal reports?
By keeping a level of informal contact with the most important ac- tivities you will be better able to monitor the atmosphere in which teams are working. You will be in a better position to judge whether the interpersonal relationships are creating a productive energy or contributing to conflict and delay. You will be able to respond quickly if teams are facing delays because of failures in deliveries of materials or equipment. You will be more likely to notice if any staff are being pulled away from the project because of other work pressures.
Control is only possible if you have a plan against which to measure progress.
If the plan is clear about what should be achieved and when, it is possible to monitor progress to be sure that each outcome is of the right quality and achieved at the right time.