Project Control

Lecture 13b
 Outline

▪ Design of Control Systems

▪ Control of Change and Scope Creep

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 The Design of Control Systems

▪ Who sets the standards?

▪ Are the standards realistic?
▪ Are the standards clear?
▪ Will they achieve the project goals?
▪ What should be monitored?
▪ How should they be monitored?
▪ Many more…

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Characteristics of a Good Control System

Flexible Accurate
Cost effective Simple
Useful Easy to maintain
Ethical Fully documented
Timely

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 Critical Ratio Control Charts

▪ Made up of two parts:

▪ Ratio of actual progress to scheduled progress
▪ Ratio of budgeted cost to actual cost
▪ Caeteris paribus

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 Critical Ratio Control Chart

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 Critical Ratio Control Charts

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 Benchmarking

▪ Making comparisons to “best in class” practices

across organizations

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 Benchmarking Best Practices

1. Promoting the benefits of project management

2. Personnel
3. Methodology
4. Results of project management
5. On-course improvement in project management
practices

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 Control of Change and Scope Creep

▪ Uncertainty about the technology

▪ Increase in the knowledge base or sophistication
▪ Modification of the rules applying to the project
▪ Coping with changes is perceived as the most
important problem facing project managers

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 Purpose of Formal Change Control System

▪ Review all changes

▪ Identify all task impacts
▪ Translate impacts into scope, cost, and schedule
▪ Evaluate the benefits and costs

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 Purpose of Formal Change Control System Continued

▪ Identify alternative changes

▪ Accept or reject
▪ Communicate
▪ Ensure implementation
▪ Report

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 Guidelines for an Effective Change Control
Procedure
▪ Include change process in all agreements
▪ Issue a change order for all approved changes
▪ Project manager must be consulted
▪ Changes must be approved in writing
▪ Master plan must be amended

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 Control: A Primary Function of Management

▪ Control of project is usually exercised through people

▪ Control is exercised when monitoring flags a problem
▪ The control may come from any level of management
▪ The goal of the control is to get the project back on
track

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 Response to Control System

▪ People respond to goal-directedness of control

systems in one of the three general ways:
▪ By active and positive participation and goal seeking
▪ By passive participation in order to avoid loss
▪ By active and negative participation and resistance

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 Human Response to Controls

▪ Cybernetic controls
▪ Response tends to be positive
▪ Go/no-go controls
▪ Response tends to be neutral or negative
▪ Post controls
▪ Seen as a report card
▪ Response depends on “grade”

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 Balance in a Control System

▪ When developing a Control System, it is important that

the system is well-balanced.
▪ A balanced control system is cost effective, well geared
to the end results sought, and not overdone.

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 Balance in a Control System

▪ Common causes of imbalance are:

▪ Placing too much weight on easy-to-measure factors,
and too little weight on easy to measure factors.
▪ Emphasizing shorter-run results at the expense of
longer-run objectives
▪ Ignoring changes in the environment or goals (evolution
of the firm).

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 Balance in a Control System (cont.)

▪ Common causes of imbalance are:

▪ Overcontrol by the top management (aggressive
management always cause trouble).
▪ Monitoring and Controlling items may lead some people
to ignore anything that is not measured, “If it is not
measured, it is not important”

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 Controlling Creative Activities

▪ Cases of controlling R&D projects, design projects,

and similar projects that depend on the creativity of
individuals and teams
▪ Creativity is hard to control
▪ Creativity involves a great degree of uncertainty
▪ Too much control tends to inhibit creativity

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 Controlling Creative Activities

▪ Three general approaches to control creativity:

▪ Process Review: process review focuses on the process
of reaching the outcomes rather than on the outcomes
per se.
▪ Personnel Reassignment: individuals who are
productive are kept, the others are moved to other jobs
▪ Control of Input Resources: focus is on efficiency of use
of resources.

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 Conclusion

▪ Control is directed to scope, time and cost.

▪ A good rule for the Controller/PM is to place the
control as close as possible to the work being
controlled and to design the simplest mechanism
possible to achieve control.

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