Page 145 - DMGT302_FUNDAMENTALS_OF_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT

Fundamentals of Project Management

Notes There are two reasons for this.

First, you must take intelligent and meaningful corrective action with the end point in mind.
Guiding the ship must include more than just steering it back on course; it must also include
recognizing that there’s an object up ahead that you’re going to have to steer around or winds
around the upcoming point of land that have kicked up since you started your voyage. The
future will always be different than expected at the outset of the project. Assumptions will be
revised, operating conditions will change, and new things will be thrown in your path. Sometimes,
actions you take now must compensate for future sources of variance as well as variances
created though past performance.

The second reason you need to focus on the end point pertains to management reporting. In
most cases, what will probably interest them most is a prediction of where you think you’re
going to end up: this is the type of information they need to run the business. Being able to
report to your management that you’re two weeks behind schedule or $10,000 over budget right
now may or may not be of value to them. Reporting that you expect the project to be completed
three weeks late or $15,000 over budget is much more likely to be of value.

What are you actually Controlling?

At this point, you’re probably saying, “OK, so I should be focused on the end point of the project
and I should be trying to ‘get back on track’ and minimize variances. But the end point of what?
Get back on what track? And what kind of variance are we talking about?” All good questions.
The most fundamental measure of project success relates to meeting the agreed-upon targets in
each of these dimensions. These are the targets that you promised to meet at the beginning of
the project; these are the targets that you should focus on controlling.
Two of the targets pertain to the consumption of resources:
1. Schedule: Was the project completed on time? (How long did we take?)

2. Cost: Did the project come in at cost? (How much did we spend?)
The other two targets are tied to the deliverables of the project:
1. Functionality: Do project deliverables have the expected capability? (What can they do?)

2. Quality: Do the deliverables perform as well as promised? (How well can they do it?)
As far as many organizational managers are concerned, the ideal end point occurs when a
project meets these four targets exactly as promised. Although “beating targets” is often
characterized as desirable, hitting targets provides a level of predictability that most
organizational managers value. The first two targets (schedule and cost) often get the most
attention; hence the very common phrase “controlling cost and schedule.”
Sometimes, however, controlling cost and schedule gets too much attention and deliverable
performance is not as closely monitored as it should be. This is a major oversight, one that you
should concentrate on avoiding.
8.9 Characteristics of Project Control System

Ultimately, the only way to control a project is for every member of the project team to be in
control of his or her own work. A project manager can achieve control at the macro level only if
it is achieved at the micro level. However, this does not mean that you should practice
micro-managing! It actually means that you should set up conditions under which every team

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