Monitoring & Control

Question 1

When, why, and what do we baseline in a project?

Answer 1

When

After planning phase is completed and the PMP is approved and signed off at the gate review, the PM has the responsibility to monitor and react to changes in the execution of the project.

Why

Here, the PMP becomes the baseline, an important point of reference to fall back on and dictates parameters of success. Changes are unavoidable.

What

We baseline the project’s PMP in terms of

• scope
• schedule
• budget

Question 2

What is change control and what is its process?

Answer 2

The process through which all requests to change the baseline scope, time, cost, or quality of a project, programme or portfolio are

1. captured,
2. impact evaluated, and then
3. approved, rejected or deferred

Question 3

What does change control hope to avoid?

Answer 3

scope creep

where a project scope keeps increasing over time; and uncontrolled change are major causes of project failure (cost and delay increase beyond acceptance)

However we cannot prohibit changes on a project, as change can also be beneficial.

Question 4

Roles and Responsibilities in Change Control

Answer 4

PM – can approve change with no impact on overall schedule, cost or benefits

Sponsor – small impact; change affecting schedule or costs which do not affect other projects

Steering Group – large impact; change affecting scope, objective, benefits, schedule or costs outside the authority (tolerance) of sponsor or which affect other projects

Question 5

Change Log Example

Answer 5

Question 6

Change Requests: Factors to consider

Answer 6

• Did a paying customer request the change?
• Changes to cost, duration, reliability, or safety?
• Would the change cause scrap and re-work?
• Would the change render components of the project non-interchangeable?

Question 7

What is a core tool for monitoring?

Answer 7

EVM - Earn Value Management

monitors progress against the baseline of planning elements (e.g. spent or schedules)

Question 8

How does EVM work?

Answer 8

• having an agreed set of measures of progress against the baseline
• variances give us our status
• trends and patterns show the rate and performance forecasts

Question 9

What does Earned Value Analysis tell us?

Answer 9