Processes in Project Management: Phase 4 — Project Monitoring and Control
The role of the Project Manager in Phase 4 of the Project Management Life-Cycle
Whilst key processes are taking place in Phase 3 of the Project Management Life-Cycle and the project teams and Execution Process Groups are working on producing the deliverables, meeting their key targets and milestones, and ensuring that they are adhering to the objectives set out in the Project Schedule, the Project Manager’s role becomes one of overseer.
Having conducted an Execution Process Group Meeting at the start of Phase 3, the Project Manager now monitors the health of the project as a whole, managing its component parts, ensuring that the Project plan and the Project Schedule are being followed and that the Project Teams and meeting their required targets. To do this, the Project Manager continually monitors the project’s CSSQ, Cost, Scope, Schedule, and Quality.
Processes in Phase 4: Monitoring and Control
1. Verify Scope
As the Project Teams work on Executing the work for the project, there is a danger of “scope creep”. This can be due to changes in Product Owner expectations, or deviations in what the execution teams are able to deliver in comparison with what was initially laid out in the Project Scope Statement. Through Phase 4, the Project Manager will be constantly verifying that the scope of the project is still consistent with the Scope Statement.
2. Monitor Cost
The Project Manager will be monitoring the outgoing costs as work to produce the deliverables is taking place and check that costs are remaining in line with the budget set forth in the Project Charter and Project Management Plans.
3. Scope Control
Ongoing scope control is a continual process throughout the Execution and the Monitoring Phases, as it enables the Project Manager to maintain the Project Charter. In controlling the scope, the Project Manager ensures that the project’s aims, objectives, and expected deliverables have not changed in the time between the Initiating/ Planning Phases and the Execution stage.
4. Schedule Control
The Project Manager must also monitor the projected timelines, milestones, and the expected date for the completion and handover of the project’s deliverables. If there has been any scope creep, it will likely have an impact on the Project Schedule, and the Project Manager’s task will be to apply the appropriate mitigation strategies, such as modifying milestones and timelines, in order to ensure that the project’s timeline does not veer too far off course.
5. Perform Quality Control
While the Project Teams executing their sub-tasks are performing quality assurance in their teams as they produce the deliverables, the Project Manager performs quality control on the project as a whole, using the Quality Management Plan they developed in Phase 2, looking at how the Execution Phase work is being conducted, how all of the Project Teams are maintaining their work bundles and ensuring that the Project Charter is being maintained in order to achieve the best project outcome for all stakeholders.
6. Manage Project Team
Just as the Execution Process Group and Team Leaders are managing their local teams throughout the Execution Phase, they are themselves being managed by the Project Manager. The Project Manager will hold regular meetings with them, receiving updates on the work that is being done, being provided data, reports, prototypes, and any other material they require, and receiving feedback on any problems that have caused, or are threatening to cause problems or delays.
The Project Manager will also monitor whether the Execution Process Group/ Team Leaders are working cohesively as a unit, discussing what successes have been achieved, what improvements can be made if any additional support or resource would help progress, and ensuring that the final outcomes and following the Project Schedule, Scope Statement and overall Project Charter are being met.
If there are any performance issues within the Project Manager’s team, it is their role to manage these accordingly.
7. Reporting Performance
Through the duration of Phase 3 and 4, the Project Manager reports on the project’s status and performance in order to ensure that the key stakeholders and decision-makers such as the Product Owner and Project Sponsor are kept abreast of the project’s trajectory, the successes that have already been achieved as well as any problems that have been identified in terms of the overall health of the project. To that end, the Project Manager will compile a Project Status Report (PSR). The basic contents of a PSR will include information and updates on the following;
- Cost Contingency Performance- e.g. is the project still performing within the allocated budget?
- Schedule Performance- e.g. is the project on time or are there delays? Are the deadlines and milestones outlined in the Project Schedule being achieved?
- Quality Assurance — e.g. is the project standing up to the standards set out in the Quality Management Plan?
8. Manage Stakeholders
With the information they collate in the Project Status Report, the Project Manager manages stakeholders and their expectations by keeping them informed of the project’s successes and alerting them to any problems that the Project Teams have during the Execution Phase. In this way, the Project Manager can keep the stakeholders engaged and supportive throughout the project’s lifespan, fostering positive, clear, and timely communication.
9. Risk Monitoring and Control
Having compiled the PSR and communicated its findings to the key stakeholders, the Project Manager will monitor risks that threaten to impede progress on the project, using the Risk Management Plan they developed during Phase 2. They will look at the risks or issues that have been identified and employ the risk mitigation strategies that set out in the Planning Phase.
10. Contract Administration
Throughout Phase 4, the Project Manager will manage contract issues and amendments, such as Change Requests from stakeholders and their impact upon the overall Project Schedule, Scope and Charter, contracts pertaining to out-sourced resources (materials, equipment, or staff), and invoicing and payments both incoming and outgoing.
With careful and effective management, the Project Manager ensured the continued success of the project, steering it through the Execution and the Monitoring and Control phases of the life-cycle, and maintaining the project through to the fifth and final phase, Closure.
Next in this series: "Processes in Project Management: Phase 5 — Project Closure"
©️ Jupiter Grant 2020
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About the Creator
Jupiter Grant
Writer, Poet, Narrator, Audiobook Producer, Freelancer.
As you may have guessed, Jupiter Grant is my nom de plume. I’m a purveyor of fiction, poetry, pop culture, and whatever else takes my fancy on any given day.
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