Introduction to Project Control

Association for Project Management (APM)

• Publisher: Association for Project Management (APM)
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781903494387
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Project Management
• Index: Business

There is a narrow view of control which is about delivering projects in accordance with their plans, using disciplines like earned value and risk management already championed by APM. Introduction to Project Control, written by the APM Planning Specific Interest Group, offers a wider perspective, which includes doing the right projects. It involves integrating all the disciplines of project management and brings together material from the APM Body of Knowledge and other APM publications.

1

Introduction

The APM Body of Knowledge, 5th edition¹ defines a project as:

“A unique, transient endeavour undertaken to achieve a desired outcome.”

The APM Body of Knowledge, 5th edition defines project management as:

“The process by which projects are defined, planned, monitored, controlled and delivered so that agreed benefits are realised.”

The project management ‘process’ is a combination of numerous individual processes, many of which relate to the subsidiary discipline of project control. Much of what a project manager does is directly or indirectly related to project control, but the APM Body of Knowledge, 5th edition does not explicitly define project control and it is rather difficult to arrive at a concise definition. One possible definition of project control is:

“The application of processes to measure project performance against the project plan, to enable variances to be identified and corrected, so that project objectives are achieved.”

This covers the ‘monitored’ and ‘controlled’ elements of project management as defined by the APM Body of Knowledge, 5th edition and essentially means “making sure projects are done right”. However, there is more to it than that. This publication proposes that an equally important part of control is “doing the right projects”, both individually and in programmes and portfolios. This ensures that the projects which are undertaken by an organisation:

•deliver the right products, thereby;

•contributing to the required new capabilities, and hence;

•providing the desired benefits to the organisation.

A wider definition of project control is therefore:

“The application of project, programme and portfolio management processes within a framework of project management governance to enable an organisation to do the right projects and to do them right.”

To achieve this, project control operates across a spectrum from the tactical to the strategic, involving much of the overall discipline of project management and involving most of the individual project management disciplines represented by the APM Specific Interest Groups (SIGs).

Since so much of project management is involved in project control, the APM Body of Knowledge, 5th edition naturally includes many control-related topics. This publication draws heavily on these topics, developing them and integrating them in an attempt to deliver a comprehensive introduction to the discipline of project control.

Some of the topics are already explored in detail in other APM publications and many of these are therefore referenced. It is not the aim of this publication to reproduce the content of these other publications in any depth, but to say enough to provide an integrated view of control. The definitions used and principles addressed here are broadly consistent with the APM Body of Knowledge, 5th edition and with the other APM publications, though some tailoring has been necessary to highlight control principles.

APM’s Planning SIG (Annex D) has a particular interest in project control as a natural extension of project planning, which it addresses in the APM publication Introduction to Project Planning.² The APM Planning SIG believes that effective planning and control are both essential for successful project management. It believes that truly effective control is only possible when effective planning has been undertaken. The ability to control is a consequence of good planning and makes planning an investment rather than just a cost. But the ability to control is also a consequence of the other project management disciplines working properly and so it is probably correct to state that, apart from a few unique elements, project control is a virtual discipline drawing on the others.

Virtual discipline or not, the purpose of this publication is to raise awareness of project control, highlighting its dependence on planning and its relationship with the other project management disciplines. It should be of interest to those new to project management, and hopefully also to the project management community in general and in particular to planning and control practitioners.

This publication addresses five key questions:

1.What is project control?

2.Why control?

3.When to control?

4.Who controls?

5.How to control?

It also defines the characteristics of good project control. It does not include detailed treatment of control tools and techniques, several of which are addressed in detail in the other APM publications. The APM Planning SIG anticipates building on its introductions to planning and control by developing in-depth guides, which will contain detailed treatment of tools and techniques used in both planning and control, where not already addressed by APM.

¹ Association for Project Management (2006) APM Body of Knowledge, 5th edition, APM Knowledge, ISBN: 978-1-903494-13-4

² Association for Project Management (2008) Introduction to Project Planning, APM Knowledge, ISBN: 978-1-903494-28-8

2

What is project control?

2.1 PRINCIPLES

Even the simplest human endeavours require control. Consider, for example, a cycle trip. A cycle trip, however simple, is a unique, transient endeavour; even if you’ve done similar trips many times before, one of a host of factors may have changed – the weather, the road conditions, the traffic, etc. This time, the weather forecast is for torrential rain, but even so, a loved one needs you to make the trip faster than ever before to bring back some chocolates before a particularly good film starts on TV at 8 o’clock. The core work of this ‘project’ is pedalling the bike, but a bike is unstable; just riding it requires constant attention to both balance and steering, but you also have to avoid obstacles and navigate. Projects are like cycle trips. They’ll take you to your objectives, but only if you stay in control, and it’s necessary to stay in control in order to avoid a nasty crash.

Project managers must ensure they control their unique, transient and unstable projects in order to achieve their objectives. Most of what a project manager does during the life of a project has a ‘control’ element to it: leading the project team, running meetings, managing stakeholders, etc. A lot of these activities rely on leadership skills such as effective communication, influencing, negotiation and conflict resolution (such skills are generally described as ‘soft’, but they certainly aren’t easy.) The project manager also needs to employ ‘hard’, quantitative control processes and it is these that are the main focus of this publication. These processes address all three project dimensions – quality, time and cost, and therefore include all of the following:

•Controlling the scope of the project – controlling change.

•Ensuring that the project’s products/deliverables fulfil their requirements – controlling quality.

•Ensuring that activities happen on time – scheduling.

•Ensuring that work is performed within budget – cost control.

•Managing risks.

•Managing problems and identifying issues (and obtaining external help to resolve them).

•Making sure that the project leads to benefits for the organisation.

The control processes involve the collection and analysis of data, the identification of trends and variances, forecasting and the reporting of progress. It is also essential that the information gathered is acted on – without effective responses to actual and potential problems, the project is merely monitored, not controlled. Control is certainly not just about control tools or software, although these are generally necessary to carry out some of the control processes. Neither should control be facilitated only by specialist project control personnel: it must be owned and driven by the project manager with involvement of the project team, the project’s sponsor, other stakeholders in the organisation and possibly external stakeholders too.

2.2 THE SPECTRUM OF CONTROL

Bicycles are unstable and require continuous real-time control through balance and steering. But making a successful bike trip also requires the bike to be guided around obstacles and to the destination, without getting lost. You control a cycle trip with a combination of reactive and predictive processes. The processes require feedback via balance, sight and sound; some are routine and have become instinctive through experience (like balance); others require conscious attention (like navigation). There is a spectrum of control processes in operation, within which are processes that can be characterised as inner loop or outer loop.

The inner loop control processes are high-frequency feedback processes operating in real time, and include:

•balance – to stay on the bike;

•vision – to aid balance and to avoid other traffic and obstacles;

•hearing – to sense other traffic;

•kinaesthesia (muscle sense) – to control movement.

The inner loop processes tell you that you’re going the right way and pedalling fast enough to be home with the chocolates before the film starts. They also warn of risks (i.e. large lorry overtaking) and problems (i.e. it’s started to rain, I’ve had a puncture and just fallen off).

The outer loop control processes are lower frequency, and may not operate in real time; in the bike trip example, they’re mostly associated with decision making and some of them operate before the journey begins, for example:

•choice of destination;

•choice of route;

•choice of transport;

•choice of equipment;

•whether or not to continue.

The inner loop processes are generally applicable to all bike trips. They help a particular trip stick to its plan and flag up problems in achieving the plan (e.g. punctures). The outer loop controls are more trip-specific, ensuring that the plan for the trip is optimum, in the light of experience of numerous other bike trips, and if necessary revising the plan in response to trends and events in the journey.

Figur...