Monitoring and control:

- Monitoring is the collection of recording, and reporting of project information

- Control uses the monitored data to bring actual performance into agreement with the plan

- Monitoring & control are the opposite sides of project selection and planning
* project selectiong declared
what to monitor
* Project planning identifies
the elements to be controlled

Designing the monitring system:

- Identify special characteristics of scope, cost, and time that need to be controlled
* Specific performance characteristics
should be set for each level of detail
in project

- Real time data must be identifies to measure achievement against the plan

- It is imp to avoid the tendency to focus on easily collected data

Data collection:

1. Frequency counts
2. Raw numbers
3. Subjective numeric ratings
4. Indicators and surrogates
5. Verbal characterisations

Reporting and report types:

- Routine performance reports
* Project status reports
* Time/costs reports
* Variance reports

- Avoid periodic or routine reports
- Not all stakeholder need to recieve some info
- Electronic media make it possible to customise info for different audiences
- Report should be times to allow control to be exercised before completion of the task

Report benefits:

- Provide the mutual understanding between stakeholders in a project
- They help communicate the need for coordination among those working on project
- They establish and maintain a communicatio network for global projects
- Reports can communicate info about changes to a project
- They help maintain the visibility of the project
- Improve motivation

Meeting guidelines:

- Meetings should be used for group decision making, not for progress reporrs

- Distribute written agenda in advance of meeting to ensure that all attendees are properly prepared for the meeting

- For a crisis meeting, restrict discussion to that issue

- The should take minutes
- Avoid excessive formality
- If meeting is held to address specific crisis, restrict meeting to this issue alone

Two simple rules for variances:

- A negative variance is bad and a positiive variance is good
- The spending and schedule variances ar calculated as the earned value minus some other measure

Project control :

- Control, the act of reduing difference between the plan and the actuality

- Final element in planning monitoring cycle

- It is to no avail if actions are not taken when reality deviates significantly from what was planned

- Control is difficult - it involves human behaviour, probs are rarely clear cut

Purposes of control system:

- Main purpose is to correct errors - not to identify and punish the guilty. Managers must realise that the past cannot be chnaged

- Control the investment, subject to dimnishing returns

- Consider impact on creativity and innocation

- The control system should employ the lowest degree of hassle consistent with accomplishing its goals