Page 148 - DMGT302_FUNDAMENTALS_OF_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT

Unit 8: Monitoring and Controlling

Notes

Notes KISS stands for “Keep it simple, stupid!” The smallest control effort that achieves
the desired result should be used. Any control data that are not essential should be
eliminated. However, as was just mentioned, one common mistake is to try to control
complex projects with systems that are too simple!

8.10 Project Review Meetings

There are two aspects to project control. One can be called maintenance and the other aims at
improvement of performance. The maintenance review just tries to keep the project on track.
The improvement review tries to help project teams improve performance. Three kinds of
reviews are routinely conducted to achieve these purposes. They are:
1. Status reviews
2. Process or lessons-learned reviews
3. Design reviews

Everyone should do status and process reviews. Design reviews, of course, are appropriate only
if you are designing hardware, software, or some sort of campaign, such as a marketing campaign.
A status review is aimed at maintenance. It asks where the project stands on the PCTS measures
that we have used throughout this book. Only if you know the value of all four of these can you
be sure where you are. Process means the way something is done, and you can be sure that
process always affects task performance. That is, how something is done affects the outcome. For
that reason, process improvement is the work of every manager.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

11. There are ....................... aspects to project control.
12. The maintenance review just tries to keep the ....................... on track.
13. The response to control data must be ....................... .

14. A control system should ....................... on response
15. The control system must focus on project ......................., with the aim of ensuring that the
project mission is achieved

Case Study Project Management in Competitive Exports

n Indian firm involved in the export market, predominantly to the United States,
was a manufacturer of telecom and switching equipment. An efficient and
Acompetitive firm, if not the largest, it used the best quality components and was
the first company in its industry to regularly export such technical equipment to the West.
However, times were changing: overall, component quality had improved greatly and
the company now faced competition from recently acceded countries to the European
Contd...

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