Monitoring and Control

Question 1

what is monitoring and control?

Answer 1

monitoring - process by which manager obtains information about conditions in the project collect, record, report info

control = decide if the project is running according to plan and if not, take corrective action

Question 2

How to find out risks/changes

Answer 2

• verbally - informal observation and talking - getting feel for team progress
• written reports
• project team meetings
• management by exception - concentration on variances from the baseline - (lower-cost)

Question 3

Types of monitoring data

Answer 3

logical - is a particular statement true or false?
raw data - costs/hours of labour expended; numbers compared with baseline
- how often something happens in given period.
e.g. technical issues, number of breakdowns, number of times a contracter is late on delivery trend
- measurements taken at regular intervals e.g. EV narrative reports - descriptions of events or situations

Question 4

what is a milestone slip chart?

Answer 4

chart showing milestone progress milestone (achievement or slippage) is recorded by project manager on a regular basis (weekly).

Question 5

what are milestones

Answer 5

• significant events
• no duration, no resources
• important monitoring and control points
• key review gates at the end of life cycle phases
• unambiguous
• indicated on gantt chart as a diamond
• has an owner

Question 6

advantages of milestone clip chart

Answer 6

• provided a clear view of the current status of milestone achievement and slippage
• overcomes ambiguity of %complete
• historical record of milestone progress
• can be used to forecast (extrapolation) milestone achievement dates

Question 7

Project control techniques

Answer 7

light and heavy control techniques.
start light, then move to heavier

1. advice
2. emphasis and clarification
3. setting priorities
4. adjustments to the scheduling of tasks (resource levelling)
5. modification of plan, crashing
6. procurement of resources
7. approval or denial of task commencement
8. deployment or reassignment of personnel
9. deployment of resources (increase/decrease)

Question 8

How do you compile a milestone chart?

Answer 8

• horizontal scale is project calendar
• vertical scale shows the monitoring period (reporting dates)
• diagonal line (completion line) is the present time at any moment
• no milestone can appear below the line - must be either already completed (on the line) or planned to be completed in the future (to the right of the line)