Project Monitoring & Control : Risks, Issues and Change

Requests

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ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 1

 Project Monitoring and Control

• Once the project management plan has been implemented,

all activities in it must be monitored carefully and controlled.
• Monitoring and control are aimed primarily at the scope,
schedule, costs, quality, and risk.
– These are most likely areas to go awry without close monitoring and
control.

ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 2

 Project Monitoring and Control

• Your Project Risks, Project Issues, and Project Change are

key controls to establish in a PMO and your Projects. I like
to call these your exception controls because they control
the exceptions to your plan.
• Risk is a problem that could happen
• Issue is a problem that has happened
• Change fixes the problem that happened

ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 3

 Risk Management

• Project Risk is a problem that could happen in the future

and effect your time, cost, scope, or quality.
• All your risks should be managed in a central repository
usually called a Risk Register.
• A risk is defined by its 3 aspects: probability, impact, and
response.
• Probability is the likelihood that the risk will happen. Is there
a 20% that the risk might happen or 70%?
• Impact describes how your project will be effected if the risk
was to happen.
– Impact can further be broken up into four parts. This would be your
time, cost, scope, and quality.

ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 4

 Risk Response Strategies

• Threat Responses
– Prevent: Eliminates the Risk completely.
– Mitigate: Reduces the Impact and/or Probability of the Risk
occurring.
– Transfer: Transfers the financial impact of the Risk on a third party.
– Contingency: Provide for an alternative should the risk materialise.
– Accept: No response will be implemented
• Opportunity Responses
– Exploit: Take advantage of the opportunity
– Improve: Increase the likelihood of the opportunity occurring.
– Reject: The opportunity will be discarded.

ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 5

 Risk Management

• Questions to ask about a risk

– What is the Risk?
– What is the probability the risk will happen?
– What is the impact if the risk was to happen?
– What actions can we take to mitigate the Risk?

ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 6

 Issue Management

• Project Issue is a problem that has happened. Think of it as

an open question or decision that needs to be made in order
to move forward with one or more deliverables.

• All your issues should be managed in a central repository

usually called a Issue Register.

ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 7

 Change Request Management

• Project Change fixes the problem that happened. The

Change Request is where you review the changes you want
to make to the approved Charter and Project Plans.
• Change can effect four areas: Cost, Time, Scope, and
Quality.
• Once the impact of the change is reviewed, a decision is
made to move forward with all or part of the change.
• The people that approve the change should be based on the
severity of the change.
• Simple changes could be approved by the Project Manager,
a significant change could require a Project Steering
Committee that includes people from Finance, Risk, and the
Business.
ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 8
 Change Request Management

• Some questions to ask in a Project Change Request:

• What is the change?
• How will your cost change?
• How will your scope change?
• How will your schedule change?
• How will your quality be effected?
• What risks will be introduced or mitigated?
• What are the benefits of the change?

ITSU 2006 [ Lesson 12 ] Copyright © 2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved 9