Monitor & Control
To Monitor and Control a Project involves the ongoing measurement and realignment of a Project’s progress to date against its plans.
Projects rarely go to plan. There are usually variances throughout the lifecycle of a project, and a good project manager needs to be aware and in control of these. This is why it is crucial to implement sound supporting processes and documentation at an early stage in the Project lifecycle. This will enable the Project Manager to identify and report on variances, and then manage them through an agreed change process. These processes and documents should build on what is documented in the Change Management Plan (Planning Phase).
Monitor and Control documents should be drawn up during the Planning phase. The extent and methods to monitor and control the project should be agreed in the Project Plan and signed off by the Steering Committee or whatever governance structure is in place for the project. This ensures that all stakeholders are clear about what is expected when, how the project will report to them, and how the project will be controlled to ensure that it delivers its outcomes on time and to budget.
Once the Project Plan has been baselined, the Project Manager can start tracking progress and managing any changes through the agreed process.
Putting the right tools in place will provide the Project Manager, stakeholders and Steering Committee with a dashboard of information as to how the project is progressing against the Project Plan.
The following documents are available for monitoring and control a project:
• Change Impact Assessment
• Change Register
• Change Request form
• Document Review & Acceptance Tracker
• Issue & Risks Register
• Meeting Agenda
• Meeting Minutes
• Project Review
• Project Schedule Review
• Project Status Report
The Change Impact Assessment details the impacts of the changes implemented by the project across the business.
The Change Register, or Change Log, is the central repository for ALL project changes.
The Change Request Form is used to raise a change request in the project.
To track changes made to a project document.
This is the central repository for recording and tracking ALL project issues and risks.
This is a simple template to construct an agenda for a project meeting.
This is a simple template to record the minutes from a project meeting.
A checklist of Project documentation you expect to see in successful projects.
This checklist can be used to review a project schedule prior to setting a baseline, to ensure that it meets Project Scheduling guidelines.
The Project Status Report is used to track the progress of a project and highlight any changes to schedule, budget, issues, risks and scope.