What should you monitor regularly?

Tracking  progress on a project should be a regular part of you daily routine, even if you have other duties that require your attention. Below are suggestions of what  you should check regularly.

First, you need to track the differences between what was planned and what is actually happening. This includes whether start and finish dates for activities are being met; how cost estimates are working out in reality; whether planned resource requirements are matching actual utilization; and, whether the expected outputs are being created.

Whatever  monitoring process you choose to use  face-to-face meetings, e-mail, written reports, periodic groups meetings,  you, as the project leader, have the responsibility of tracking the project. If you are not receiving the information you need, it’s your job to go get it. Setting a clear expectation for progress and status reporting at the beginning of the project is an important step in keeping a project under control. However, if you set an expectation, for example, that status reports are to be submitted weekly, you must follow-up on it. If someone has not submitted a report by the deadline, you must contact them and get it.

Monitoring the technical aspects of a project will usually take most of your time.  Most project leaders, particularly inside organizations, are first and foremost, technical experts. In many cases, their technical expertise  not their project management skills — is why they were given the project in the first place. However, you can never ignore the human factor.  Some projects fail due to insurmountable technical problems but most projects  fail because of  interpersonal issues. So pay attention to your people and the overall morale of the group,

Project monitoring is a process and you need to get into the flow. Set the pattern at the outset of your projects. Plan how you will monitor progress right along with how you will accomplish the work. Set the process in motion and keep it moving from the beginning.

Write a solid project statement

The project goal statement is the driving force behind the project. It should be the touchstone against which everything else is measured. A good project goal statement needs to be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Agreed-upon
• Realistic
• Time-framed

Specific: The goal should state exactly what the project is to accomplish. It should be worded using action words (such as “design,” “build,” or  “implement,” ).The goal statement hould be limited to those  elements of the project that communicate the purpose of the project and the outcome expected.

Measurable: If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.  However, there are usually several short-term or small measurements that can be built into the goal. Careful: Watch for words that can be misinterpreted such as; improve, increase, reduce (by how much?), customer satisfaction (who decides if they’re satisfied and how?), etc. If you must include them, be sure to include how they will be measured. Be as specific as possible.

Agreed-upon: Does everyone in the organization have to agree that the project is necessary and desirable?  Obviously, those who must do the project need to agree that it is necessary. Of course, those individuals who control the resources necessary to get the project done need to agree that it is important. In addition, those who will be impacted by the project should agree that it needs to be done.

Realistic: This is key.  Realistic, in this case, means “do-able” not necessarily easy.  A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them.

Time-framed: Probably one of the easiest parts of the goal to establish the deadline. Very little is ever accomplished without a deadline. This is particularly true of work that is in addition to everything else that you need to do in your day. Building the delivery deadline into the project goal keeps it in front of the team and lets the organization know when they can expect to see the results.

Handy Tip: Get a pack of index cards. Most effective project goals are concise– between 25 and 50 words. They can be written on one side of a 3″ x 5″ card. The shorter and clearer your statement the better the chances of success.

1. Plan the Work

Overview
You have heard the old saying – plan the work and work the plan. In essence, that is the key to successful project management. Plan first and then monitor and control the execution of the program work.

Planning
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of proper planning. In general, project failures can most often be traced back to deficiencies in the planning process. There are three major parts of the project planning process 1. Project Definition, 2. Work plan, and 3. Project management procedures.

Project Definition
Plan the Work with a Project Definition Document
There is a tendency for projects to shortchange the planning process, with an emphasis on getting right to work. This is a mistake. The time spent properly planning will result in reduced cost and duration, and increased quality over the life of the project. The Project Definition is the primary deliverable from the planning process and describes all aspects of the project at a high level. Once approved by the customer and relevant stakeholders, it becomes the basis for the work to be performed. The Project Definition includes information such as:

• Project overview – Why is the project taking place? What are the business drivers? What are the business benefits?
• Objectives – What will be accomplished by the project? What do you hope to achieve?
• Scope – What deliverables will be created? What major features and functions will be implemented? What organizations will be converted? What is specifically out of scope?
• Assumptions and Risks – What events are you taking for granted (assumptions) and what events are you concerned about? What will you do to manage the risks to the project?
• Approach – Describe in words how the project will unfold and proceed.
• Organization – Show the significant roles on the project. The project manager is easy, but who is the sponsor? Who is on the project team? Are any of the stakeholders represented?
• Signature Page – Ask the sponsor and key stakeholders to approve this document, signifying that they are in agreement with what is planned.
• Initial Effort, Cost, and Duration Estimates – These should start as best guess estimates, and then be revised, if necessary, when the workplan is completed.

Workplan

Only after the Project Definition has been prepared, can the workplan be created. The workplan provides the step-by-step instructions for constructing project deliverables and managing the project. You should use a prior workplan from a similar project as a model, if one exists. If not, build one the old-fashioned way by utilizing a work-breakdown structure and network diagram.

Create a detailed work plan, including assigning resources and estimating the work as far out as you feel comfortable. This is your planning horizon. Past the planning horizon, lay out the project at a higher level, reflecting the increased level of uncertainty. The planning horizon will move forward as the project progresses. High-level activities that were initially vague need to be defined in more detail as their time frame gets closer.

Project Management Procedures
Define the procedures that will be used to manage the project. Make sure to include sections on how the team will manage issues, scope change, risk, quality, and especially communication. It is important to be able to manage the project proactively and ensure the project team and all stakeholders have a common understanding of how the project will be managed. If common procedures have already been established for your organization, utilize them on your project.

Work the Plan

Once the project has been planned sufficiently, execution of the work can begin.  Once you have thought about your plan and put it in writing, it’s time to get to work.

Manage the Workplan
It is important to review your workplan on a regular basis to determine how you are progressing in  terms of schedule and budget. For smaller projects you  may need to review weekly. For  larger projects, the frequency might be every two weeks.
Monitor the Schedule

Identify activities that have been completed  during the previous time period and update the workplan to show progress. Determine  whether there are any other activities that should have been completed, but have not  been. After the workplan has been updated, determine if the project will be completed within  the original effort, cost, and duration. If not, determine the critical path and  look for ways to accelerate these activities to get you back on track.

Monitor the Budget.

This is key. Look at the amount of money your project  has actually consumed and determine whether your actual spending is more than estimated based on the work that has been completed. If so, face the issue squarely. Either work with the team  to determine how the remaining work will be completed to hit your original budget  or else raise a risk that you may exceed your allocated budget.

Best Practice – Always Look for  Warning Signs
Of course you want your project to run smoothly. For that to happen to have to proactively look for any signs that the project may be in trouble. These could include
•      A small variance in schedule or budget starts to get bigger, especially  early in the project. There is a tendency to think you can make it up, but this is a warning:  If the  tendencies are not corrected quickly, the impact will be unrecoverable.
•      Activities you think have already been completed are  still being  worked on.
•      You need to rely on unscheduled overtime to hit the deadlines, especially  early in the project.
•      Team morale starts to deteriorate
•      Deliverable quality or service quality starts to deteriorate.
•      Quality control steps, testing activities, and project management time  starts to be cut back from the original schedule.

If these situations occur, act decisively: raise visibility through risk management, and put  together a plan  to  ensure that the project stays on track. If you cannot successfully  manage  through the problems, raise an issue. Don’t keep it a secret or it things are likely to get worse.

Manage Scope
After the basics of managing the schedule, managing scope is the most important  activity required to control a project. Many project failures are not caused by problems  with estimating or team skill sets, but by the project team working on major and  minor deliverables that were not part of the original Project Definition or business  requirements. Even if you have good scope management procedures in place, there are still  two major areas of scope change management that must be understood to be successful – understanding who owns the project and scope creep.

Best Practice – Make Sure the Sponsor Approves Scope Change Requests
In general, the Project Sponsor is the person who is funding the project. While  there is usually just one sponsor, the project could have many stakeholders, or people  that are impacted by the project. Requests for scope changes will most often come from stakeholders – many of whom may be managers in their own right. It does  not matter how important a change is to a stakeholder, they cannot make scope change decisions  and they cannot give your team the approval to make the change. In proper scope  change management, the sponsor (or their designate) must give the approval since they  are the only ones that can add additional funding to cover the changes and know if  the project impact is acceptable.

Best Practice – Guard Against Scope Creep
Most Project Managers know to invoke scope change management procedures if  they are asked to add a major new function or a major new deliverable to their project.  However, sometimes the project manager does not recognize the small scope changes that  get added over time. Scope creep is a term used to define a series of small scope changes  that are made to the project without scope change management procedures being used.  With scope creep, a series of small changes, none of which appear to affect the  project individually, can accumulate to have a significant overall impact on the project.  Many projects fail because of scope creep and the Project Manager needs to be diligent  in guarding against it.
Manage Risk

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