Summary

As we discussed earlier in the chapter: things change. Project control can be viewed as the glue that holds hold the project together. Continuous monitoring of project results and the implementation of appropriate action to make course corrections are the keys to delivering a successful project.

An integrated change control system is an umbrella that recognizes change or requests for change, determines the global impacts of a change, and updates all impacted portion of the project plan when a change is made.

You'll use scope change control to handle such issues as scope creep, reviewing and analyzing requests for scope changes, and updating all impacted documents if a scope change occurs.

As project manager, your concerns center around many change control issues. For instance, schedule control requires ongoing review of progress reports and schedule updates, with a focus on any delays to critical path tasks . Cost control compares actual spending with the cost baseline as it relates to the completion of specific deliverables or phases. When providing quality control, you'll implement the quality activities defined as part of the quality management plan.

Of course, any project has its risks. A project manager must use risk monitoring and assess the impact of the risk prevention steps identified during planning, identifying and prioritizing new risks, and implementing contingency plans based on a trigger event. Furthermore, the project manager must review and monitor the issues log to confirm that issues are being resolved and closed appropriately.

A project manager is also in charge of determining whether all of the project team players are doing what they set out to do at the cost they had originally estimated. Performance reporting uses a variety of analysis techniques to quantify the project control results for communication with the project stakeholders. Performance in any project element that goes outside predefined limits requires action on the part of the stakeholder team. Trade-offs between quality, scope, schedule, and cost are presented by the project manager. Cancellation of the project is also an action for consideration if the project is no longer viable based on any of the trade-off options.