Monitoring and controlling are indispensable elements of projects management. The purpose of these two steps is to review the project’s status and analyze the potential objectives and threats to develop a way to mitigate them. It is necessary to control the project to ensure that it will be completed on time and that the costs will not exceed the limits. Apart from that, monitor and control assist in guaranteeing the quality of the project. Overall, these actions are the way to balance the requirements of the clientele with the time limit, allocated funding, and capabilities of the company to maximize the quality of the outcome.
A project manager could apply several techniques to monitor and control a project. Some of these techniques as progress meetings and progress reports (Tereso et al., 2019). The purpose of these two techniques is to make the employees estimate their progress, discuss concerns and obstacles, and brainstorm new ideas on how to improve the project or resolve problems. Furthermore, progress meetings are an effective way to ensure that no one procrastinates, breaks deadlines, and postpones a task until the last moment. The success of project management is also heavily affected by the team members’ level of collaboration and trust (Bond-Barnard et al., 2018). Therefore, a project manager should gather progress meetings not only to check whether the team smoothly follows the plan but also to increase interaction between the employees and improve communication and trust between them.
Another way to control the project is to develop a Gantt chart, i.e., a bar chart that visualizes the due time of project’s tasks and events. The primary purpose of a Gantt chart is to plan a project properly (Tereso et al., 2019). Still, this chart is also an immensely efficient controlling technique (Grigore et al., 2018). Using a Cantt chart, a project manager could control that the team follows the schedule and completes all the stated tasks on time.
The process of monitoring and controlling also manifests itself in project management through the maintenance of communication with such stakeholders as clients. It is necessary to keep clients informed not only because it is polite and responsible behavior but also because it is how the misunderstanding could be prevented. What is more, if a client is dissatisfied with the results of one of the project’s stages, it will be easier to fix the problem immediately than after the project’s completion. In some cases, clients might require alterations in the scope of the project. Thus, the earlier the team becomes aware of the new requirement, the easier it is to fix the plan at the beginning of the project than to redo it at the end. Communication with stakeholders is about transparency and genuine responsibility for the quality of the final product.
To conclude, the project’s success to a great extent depends on monitor and control procedures. It is necessary to constantly check whether all the tasks are complemented on time and whether any unforeseen obstacles, risks, and threats appear in the process of working on the project. Nowadays, there is numerous software that makes controlling significantly easier. It is possible to trace deadlines and plan the workflow in such programs. A project manager also should not neglect communication with the subordinates, clients, and contractors to ensure that everything works smoothly.
References
Bond-Barnard, T. J., Fletcher, L., & Steyn, H. (2018). Linking trust and collaboration in project teams to project management success. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 11(2), 432-457. Web.
Grigore, M. C., Ionescu, S., & Niculescu, A. (2018). New methods for project monitoring. FAIMA Business & Management Journal, 6(1), 35-44.
Tereso, A., Ribeiro, P., Fernandes, G., Loureiro, I., & Ferreira, M. (2019). Project management practices in private organizations. Project Management Journal, 50(1), 6-22. Web.