Control schedule

One of the most significant challenges of ongoing projects is to have proper control system
for its implementation. Projects have to be controlled as carefully as possible because they
are often defined by their budget and schedule limitations. So, a good control system can
make a project successful.

Control cycle:

1. Goal setting:

As we have settled the project baseline and goals. Moreover, a proper work breakdown
structure is formulated to define each task and personnel associated with them. Setting goals
is very important to conduct control cycle.

2. Measuring progress:

In order to measure progress, project managers must have an accurate measurement system or
mechanism that can show the ongoing status of project in real time. For this purpose, we have
developed a system for the recording of all ongoing major tasks for our solid waste
management project. The format is as follows:

3. Computing actual with planned performance:

After setting a baseline and having a measuring system, we compared the two pieces in order
to find the gap. For each task the gap analysis is performed and then evaluated as follows:

Smaller gap between planned and actual performance = Better outcome

Larger gaps between planned and actual performance = Warning signal

4. Taking action:

Based on the results of above gap analysis, we took corrective measures for the tasks that
were showing a warning signal. The corrective measures are taken based on the intensity of
warning signals. Once all corrective measures are taken, we again started the control cycle to
control the later tasks.
 Monitoring and Evaluation
Once the project is developed and implemented successfully by the authorities, they need to
monitor, review and evaluate the plan in order to assess the effectiveness of the project. An
effective reviewing, evaluating and monitoring process will ensure that the plan is still
relevant to the stakeholders and the targeted population over time. Assessing and monitoring
the project includes determining if the goals are achieved and targets are met. It also help
authorities in identifying areas for improvements.

The project team followed these steps in carrying out the monitoring and evaluation as shown
below:

 Check if the targets and settled Goals still relevant or they are no longer appropriate
due to changing circumstances and priorities.
 Collect qualitative and quantitative data to perform gap analysis of project
performance.
 Analyze the collected data to measure progress and check whether the actual
performance matches with the planned one.
 Discuss the findings with the whole team and record them as it will help in checking
progress in coming rounds of evaluation.
 Monitor if the process is still involving the citizens and the various stakeholders.
 Check if current indicators and technologies appropriate or there are new technologies
or resources available that would make other indicators more appropriate.

Milestone Analysis:

Milestone analysis is the most widely used and simplest method for monitoring project’s
performance because they clearly show the project performance and all team members of the
project can easily understand and relate this metric. Basically, a milestone is a stage in project
that shows an important achievement on the road to project success. So, we used milestone
analysis to monitor our project. Our project has a number of milestones, from waste
collection until its disposition and further treatment so milestone analysis can give a clear
picture of what’s going on in the project and provides a roadmap to perform further
processes.

Earned value management:

Earned value management is another method through which we monitored and controlled our
project. It is a terminology that tells us about the worth of work completed against the
planned budget. EVM directly incorporates all the three-basic metrics of project success i.e.,
performance, time and cost.

So, as seen above, in the initial stage of drum installation the earned value was less than the
planned one also not all the 300 drums were installed as there are many factors behind it.
These factors include inappropriate weather, geographical constraint and some permission
issues. This earned value management gave a clear picture of task performance and helped to
minimize the above-mentioned factors for later days.

Project closeout and termination

After the execution of all processes our project moved towards the final stage of termination
phase. At this stage all the deliverables are transferred, and documentation is done. Our
project undergoes natural termination so whole closeout process was followed which
involves following activities:

1. Finishing the work:

After completing all the processes, a checklist is used to assess if all the processes are
completed or something is left behind.

All the processes were completed so we moved towards handing over the project.

2. Handing over the project:

We identified a hand over plan to transfer all the deliverables to the intended user. However,
this project is government based so it is not transferred to a new owner.

Hand-over Plan
Activities Time allotted
 Handover system maintenance 2 weeks
 Handover employee’s recruitment system
 Handover operational support
 Handover waste disposal
 Handover system documentation
 Handover project documents
Suppliers

 Inform supplier of termination 1 week

  Return supplier assets
 Issue supplier resources
 Pay supplier invoices and clear accounts payable
Resources (staff and equipment)

 Inform staff of release or closeout 2 weeks

 Return staff assets
 Pay staff salaries or account receivables
 Release staff members
 Handover equipment to new owner
 Release or sale equipment
 Update the ledger
Stakeholders

Inform stakeholders by email for each recipient about: 2 weeks

 Project success
 Project closeout
 Benefits realized
 Lessons learned

3. Gaining acceptance:

Clients acceptance of solid waste management is determined by surveys and questionnaires to

know the satisfaction of users about this project. Client acceptance and happiness determines
the overall success of the project. So, customer feedback is very important while closing out a
project.

4. Harvesting benefits:

The harvested benefits out of this project are:

 Clean and healthy environment

 Less waste borne diseases
 Employment opportunities
 Profit generation from recycling waste
 Revenue generation by producing compost from organic wastes
 The project reduces greenhouse gas emissions

5. Reviewing:
During review we conducted a realistic analysis on the Lessons Learned from this project.
They are:

 Partnerships among local societies, private and civil sectors can lead to the successful
implementation of solid waste management.
 The success of solid waste management projects lies in the level of involvement of
local communities and the city/district authorities.
 An important aspect of this project was that it was not fully automated, due to which
it could employ people from the informal and illiterate sector. So it is a good
employment opportunity especially for low income people.
 Workers can be provided with better salary rates, health insurance, good working
conditions, day-care facility and free meals both for the success of project and ethical
values.
 As beverage containers are one of the important waste in solid waste mainly in cities
so city authorities can promote reuse and recycling of beverage containers by
imposing fees on one-way bottles.

6. Putting it all to bed:

In this step, a lot of paperwork has been completed which includes:

 Gathering all the documents to a central repository

 Closing all resource accounts
 Tracking all contractual agreements
 Closing out all accounts

7. Disbanding the team:

The end of our project is a big achievement and it is hard work and dedication of workers and
team as a whole. To acknowledge workers, an informal end of project party is thrown.