Monitoring and Controlling the Project: A Comprehensive Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of project monitoring and control, emphasizing the importance of effective strategies for successful project completion. It delves into the challenges of using existing organizational information systems for project reporting and highlights the benefits of a dedicated project reporting system. The report explores the relationship between project planning and control, and the use of monitoring systems to link these two aspects. It also covers methods for determining reporting frequency, estimating the cost of partially completed work using earned value analysis, and measuring team morale. Furthermore, the report examines the problems associated with using electronic media for project reporting and explains how earned value charts can be used to capture project objectives related to cost, performance, and schedule. Finally, it discusses the use of spending and schedule variance in building projects, providing valuable insights for project managers. The report is a contribution by a student and is available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-based study tools.

Running head: MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT
Monitoring and Controlling the Project
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT
Project Reporting and Monitoring:
Generally, it is believed that, project manager cannot use existing information system of
the organization for reporting and monitoring of the project. This is believed for mainly two
reasons which are:
 The present information system is set up to report information at some specific time. In
this aspect, information that is required for controlling a project often does not confirms
these rigid types of timetables (Meredith et al., 2014).
 Also, the existing information system of the organization is developed for dealing with
division, standard, and department of the organization where projects are rarely
confirmed to these boundaries.
Thus, it is correct that PM must not be using the existing information of the organization.
Meaning of Project Monitoring and Control are on Opposite Sides of Project
Selection and Planning:
It is considered that monitoring and controlling of the project are on contradictory sides
of project planning and selection. There are mainly two reasons behind this which are:
 The project control and monitoring tend to ensure that the current project is successfully
achieving its desired goals through proper progress making.
 Project planning and selection specifies the project goal. The planning also details the
schedules and the activities that must be fulfilled and important aspects that need to be
controlled by the project manager (Meredith et al., 2014).

2MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT
System Monitoring:
A monitoring system is considered as a straight linking among planning of the project
and control of the project. This is actually believed as correct, and the main reason behind this is
that project planning stipulates the utilization of resource, activities and project goals while the
control confirms that the project is progressing to the goal accomplishment (Meredith et al.,
2014). Another reason is that monitoring is very much concerned with the reporting and
collection of the information. Here, monitoring connects both control and planning within the
plan and specifies data types that must be gathered. Through this reporting becomes the basis of
the control.
Also, to establish effective control over the project, all parts of the project must be
addressed properly, which includes accomplished work, quality, schedule, budget and the
changes within scope. The monitoring system is mainly used for gathering and reporting data
that is associated with controlling the project. In this way again, the monitoring system is
associated with the project control.
The benefit of Project Reporting System:
A proper type of project reporting system provides various benefits. Important benefits
which are achieved through the project reporting system are the:
 The stakeholders and team members remain informed in a much better way.
 The overall amount of wasted time is reduced significantly by a proper project reporting
system.
 The project reporting system also provides the benefit of a proper record of the project,
which can be utilized for facilitating project planning in the future (Meredith et al., 2014).

3MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT
 While an effective type of project reporting system is implemented, it can help in
efficient tracking of the project. This system will automate the process of project
reporting, which will help in efficient project tracking.
 Also, by using a project reporting system, effective control can be established over the
whole project, and it will be helping in proper completion of the project.
Methods for Determining Reporting Frequency:
In many cases, the calendar might not be dictating reporting frequency. In such types of
cases, other methodologies can be utilized (Meredith et al., 2014). Here, the information need
must be dictating the frequency of the report. In project management, it is quite suitable to let the
scope changes, milestones, project’s team general need, and the problem for information dictate
report timings.
Estimation Cost of Partially Completed:
Here, the earned value analysis can be done to explain the total spending behind partially
completed. In this aspect, this cost can be measured by dividing the spent amount to the date by
the estimated percentage of project accomplishment. In general cases, this is not efficient for the
estimation of the cost that is completed partially (Meredith et al., 2014). Actually, this can be
calculated more accurately by adding the total cost of activities that are completed and a well-
informed guess on the incurred cost on the activities that need to be done.
Measuring the Team’s Morale:
For the project manager, it is crucial to measure the morale of the team. Currently, there
are various instruments that can be used accessing the morale of a team. In this aspect, a 5 or a 7

4MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT
point scale can be used, and team members can be asked to rate their extent on the following
statements.
 “I will be happy if I get the opportunity of working for some other project team.”
 “I am pleasured to work with my current project team members.”
 “I am having the confidence that current project team of ours is capable of resolving any
type of issues which can be raised during the execution of the project.”
Problems with Control:
Currently, it has been assessed that there can be problems related to the control if
electronic media is used for reporting the project information. There are mainly two ways in
which the electronic media for project reporting can lead to a problem with the control. These are
the:
 While the reporting of is done through the electronic media, it has been observed that
project manager needs to provide more time for the management of these electronic
media rather the management of the project (Meredith et al., 2014). In this way, project
reporting through electronic media leads to problems with controlling the project.
 Another reason in this aspect is the transmission speed of information. Here, the speed of
information transmission creates problems. One example is the inaccurate entry of the
information. In such types of cases, an exception is triggered immediately, which can
cause team members to change the focus to some inappropriate issue (Meredith et al.,
2014). In this way, again, project reporting through electronic media can create a problem
with the control of the project.

5MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT
Earned Value Chart for Capturing Three Objectives of a Project:
For the project, there are mainly three important objectives, which are the cost,
performance and schedule. In this aspect, the earned value chart can be used for capturing all of
these three objectives. Here, the cost value is measured as a variance between the actual costs of
work performed and the budgeted cost of work performed (Meredith et al., 2014). In such cases
where the actual cost of work performed is higher than the planned cost of work performed, the
variance becomes negative. A negative type of variance indicates that spending is more for the
work that has been performed than what was actually budgeted earlier. The variance within the
schedule of the project is calculated by calculating the difference between the budgeted cost of
work performed and the budgeted cost of the work schedule. While the variance schedule
becomes negative, it generally indicates a situation where the project is lagging from the actual
schedule. In the aspect of performance, the earned value chart designates whether project
progress is meeting the actual expectation or not. It is also considered as the baseline that has
been planned specifically for the current point in time.
Spending and Schedule Variance of a Building Project:
For a building project, both of the spending and the schedule variance can be more
informative when compared with the ratios. There are some specific cases where both of the
spending variance and the schedule variance become more informative than the ratios (Meredith
et al., 2014). The spending variance and the resource variance becomes much more informative
when it is tried to know the in-process performance for a specific type of project over time.

6MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT
References:
Meredith, J., Shafer, S., Mantel, S., and Sutton, M. (2014). Project Management in Practice, 5th
Edition. 5th ed. John Wiley & Sons.