Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 3)

There are 3 critical areas that many project managers overlook when monitoring and controlling projects, and they are often the root cause of project failure. These 3 areas are the management of; suppliers, procurement and communications. To help you to monitor and control each area efficiently, we've described each in further detail below...

Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 3)

Having previously covered the management of time, cost, quality, change, risk and issues - the final step in the "Monitor and Control" newsletter series is the management of suppliers, procurement and communications.

If you can monitor and control all of these aspects smoothly and efficiently, then you will have a great chance of delivering your project successfully. So let's tackle the last 3 remaining areas now...

Managing Suppliers

Always make sure you appoint suppliers through a formal process. Even if you're appointing suppliers you know and have worked with for some time, always create a statement of work which defines the exact scope of work that you wish them to perform.

Next create a formal detailed supplier contract for the scope of work to be completed. In this contract, define the work to be completed, the responsibilities of both parties, the performance criteria and terms and conditions for the relationship. Then if things go sour, you have something to fall back on.

In your contract, have milestones which specify what it is that you expect them to have delivered and by when. Then at each milestone date, complete a formal review of deliverables completed to date, vs. the deliverables specified in the contract. If things change during the project, then amend the contract accordingly. The contract should always represent the nature of the agreement and never become "out dated".

You can then closely monitor and control your suppliers performance.

Control Procurement

As well as managing your suppliers overall performance, you also need to monitor and control the procurement of goods and services from those suppliers.

Controlling procurement is all about reviewing and accepting goods and services once they have been delivered by your supplier. You need to implement a Procurement Management Process which enables your team to take ownership of the item being delivered, review it against pre-defined criteria and approve payment for it, based on your supplier contract.

Tip: Always make sure that you issue Purchase Orders for products you require from suppliers. Create a detailed description of the product you require on the Purchase Order, so that you have something to measure against when it arrives.

Perform Communications

Communication is King! As part of the "monitor and control" phase in a project, you'll need to keep a constant eye on the communications that are taking place.

You should always have a formal Communications Plan in place so that key messages are communicated to the right people at the right time. You can then monitor and control your project communications by making sure that the activities on your communications plan are completed at the right time, and in the right manner.

Make sure you have a feedback process so that if the wrong messages are received by staff, suppliers or stakeholders, then you'll be immediately informed and can take action to resolve it.

So that's in. In these last 3 posts, we've explained how to monitor and control your project by managing:

	Time, Cost and Quality
	Change, Risks, and Issues
	Suppliers, Procurement and Communications

By using these key project management principles, you can deliver projects quickly and efficiently, with less stress and effort than before.

Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 2)

One of the biggest challenges you will face as a Project Manager is "scope creep". That's when during the Execution phase of the project, the planned scope of work changes, often causing delays and expense.

To avoid this, you need to carefully Monitor and Control your projects, by implementing change, risk and issue processes. Here are some tips on how to do it...

Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 2)

So things aren't going to plan because your customer has changed the scope of the project? Don't worry, this is a normal event for a Project Manager, as many projects are time consuming and while the project has been progressing, the business pressures faced by the customer have changed.

The art is not in minimizing change, but in managing it properly when it does occur. Here's how to do it...

Monitor Change

The most typical cause of a project going off-the-rails is that the scope has grown out of control, by "osmosis". The client has asked for changes, the team have had new ideas and your nice neat set of project tasks now look like spaghetti.

To succeed, you need to keep tight control of your project scope, by being vigilant about change. Do this by implementing a change management process. As soon as you identify a request for change in your project, document it formally by specifying where the change has come from, why it's needed and its impact on your project objectives.

And if the change is likely to affect the target end dates, budget or deliverables, then get your sponsor and customers approval before implementing it. Don't be afraid to ask for more time, people or money if you need it, especially if the change was initiated by the customer.

Never allow change to run your project. Instead, run your project by managing change!

Control Risks

As a Project Manager, it's all too easy to roll your sleeves up and get stuck into the project delivery. But when you do this, it's often hard to keep your head above water. You may end up managing at the micro level and high level risks to the project may pass you by.

It's hard, but try and remain a little divorced from the detailed day-to-day operation of your project where possible. In this way, you can continually assess the overall risk to the project from the outside and pounce on new risks when they appear.

Also, implement a Risk Management Process to formalize the way that risks are identified, assessed and mitigated. For each risk that appears, quantify its potential impact on the project, then take immediate action to minimize the likelihood of it occurring. Always create contingency plans, so that if the risk does occur, you can go to "plan b" and minimize its effect on the project delivery.

Resolve Issues

Resolving issues sounds easy right? The challenge however, is not just in resolving every issue that turns your way, but instead monitoring all of the issues that occur on a project and only resolving issues that are likely to impact on the project outcome. It's very infrequent on a project that you'll have time to resolve every issue that crops up - so be picky.

To make sure that you resolve issues in a timely manner, you need to put in place an Issue Management Process. This helps you to review all of the issues that crop up, assess their impact, delegate the ones that can be handled by others and resolve those that are critical to the project.

And there you have it! By managing change, risks and issues, you'll be able to avoid scope creep and boost your chances of achieving project success!

 Read More... Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 3)

Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 1)

How should you monitor and control your projects? It's a good question, because everyone does it differently. We believe that the processes you use to monitor and control projects should be the same, regardless of the size and type of project you undertake. So read on, to find out how to effectively...

Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 1)

After you've started up and planned your projects, you'll move into the Execution (or "delivery") phase in the project life cycle.

This is typically the longest phase in the project, as it's in this phase that the physical deliverables are built for the customer. Whether your project is to build a construction complex, computer system or land a space vehicle on mars, you will need to very carefully monitor progress and control delivery. Otherwise, your project could go off the rails.

So to monitor and control delivery, you need to implement 9 critical project management processes. We'll describe the first 3 processes here, and in the next newsletter we'll cover the remaining 4 critical processes or you.

Critical Process #1: Time Management


Every Project Manager knows that the customer expects their project to be delivered "on time". But how many Project Managers actually record every hour spent by staff on the project?

To ensure on-time delivery, that's what you need to do: implement a time management process. This process will help you to monitor the time spent by all of the members of your team, so that you can control how time is spent.

It's not just about "having great time management skills" either, it's about putting in place a process for recording time spent by staff by using timesheets and recording that time against the project plan.

That way, you can create an accurate picture of the current status of the project to determine whether or not it is likely to finish under / on / over the time allotted.

Critical Process #2: Cost Management


Few Project Managers can tell you for every day of the project, exactly how much of their budget they have spent to date. The reason is that many of the project costs are often difficult to track, especially when they relate to the use of equipment and consumption of materials.

But to deliver you project within budget, you need to monitor and control all of the costs that accrue, on a very regular basis. You can do this by implementing a cost management process.

Cost Management is all about accurately recording project expenses, as they occur. By using Expense Forms and an Expense Register, you can monitor all project costs and control expenditure when unplanned expenses arise. You don't need to be an accountant, you just need to keep an eye on the overall project expenditure on a weekly basis and act quickly when any issues arise.

Critical Process #3: Quality Management


It's often said that the hardest thing to monitor is "quality". Most Project Managers find it difficult to determine exactly what the customer expects in terms of deliverable "quality", let alone measure the actual levels of quality achieved. But you must try.

To do this properly, you need to implement a Quality Management Process. By following this process, you can set quality targets to be achieved and gain agreement from your customer.

Then you can use Quality Assurance and Quality Control techniques to monitor and control the actual quality of your project deliverables. If your quality levels drop below the targets set, then you can take action to rectify it. By constantly reviewing quality levels and ensuring that they always meet the target, you can feel confident that your customer will sign off your project as complete, once all of the deliverables have been produced.

And there you have it. By implementing time, cost and quality management, you can take the first steps needed to properly monitor and control your project delivery. ...

Read More... Monitor and Control Your Projects (Part 2)