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Stage 4 – Monitoring and controlling the project

Project management monitoring and controlling involves actively reviewing the status of your project as it proceeds, evaluating potential obstacles, and implementing necessary changes.

To keep the project on schedule and within budget you need to control it. This is an ongoing process throughout the whole lifecycle of the project. It is achieved by constant reference to the project plan and status reports.

Project monitoring

Things that should be monitored include

  • Changes to the project brief
  • Costs set against the budget and cash flow forecasts
  • Project risks
  • Quality of work carried out
  • Resource schedules
  • Time schedules.

You can gather information on these through formal and information communications. Progress reports from team members will be invaluable. Make sure you let your team members know what you want them to report on, how often and in how much detail. Action logs are a useful tool for logging the actions of a project

All of these issues can be identified and addressed through effective and regular project meetings.

Project status report

A project status report acts as a factual record of how the project is progressing and is a means of taking corrective action when necessary. The fundamental information you need to produce your report is based on your project plan. You may wish to present a highlight report at your meetings which set out the summary of the project status at regular intervals.

One of the roles of a project manager is to ensure that team members are working together to achieve the project aims. For people to meet a goal or objective, they need to understand exactly what it is they are supposed to achieve, and they need to possess the belief that they can achieve it.

The success of a project depends on all those involved. When people fail to achieve an expected outcome - either individually or as part of a team - it may be because of lack of commitment or time. But experience suggests that it is, more often, because there is a lack of clarity around the objective(s) or a lack of belief, or confidence, in the outcome.