Monitoring and control

What is the difference between monitoring and control?

According to the PMBOK,
Monitoring includes "collecting, measuring and distributing performance information, and assessing measurements and trends to effects process improvements."

Control includes "determining corrective and preventive actions or replanning and following up action plans to determine if the actions taken resolved the performance issue."

The monitoring is taking the picture of the situation of a project, get the various measures and compare them with the key performance indicators.
The control is the corrective action that is undertaken if the performance is not the one expected or if there is a risk of having a problem in the future.

An activity is taing more time than planned: 5 days instead of 3. The measure of the 5 days by collection of te estimate to complete is the monitoring. Deciding that an additional resource will be put on the activity to finish on time is the control.

What's a project?

A simple question isn't it? So simple that it seems having no sense to define it again.
The PMBOK defines a project as :

"a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result."

• The most important point in this definition is "unique". This is also the main difference between a project and operations. The purpose of operations is to recreate the same product over and over. The uniqueness of an activity is however discutable. Creating a specific car one of its own with a specific unique color makes it a unique product. The car went through a manufacturing line that is enable to recreate the same base model. The only difference in this case is the color. And this is exactly the point. The manufacturing of the car is classic operations but the painting in a specific color becomes a project.

• An other important point is the "temporary". In a project, there must be a start date and an end date. An activity that has no spcific finish date is not a project. It could rather be considered as a maintenance.

• Let's have a look at the end deliverable of a project: "product, service or result". the end deliverable can be something tangible like a house, a bridge or a software. It can also be the improvement of a process, a transfer of knowledge or a successful trip on the other side of the street.

Is project management a real job?

You can hear regularly companies saying that project manager is not a real job. If you want to work, you need to know the techniques, the business, or both. I guess this is not very true. A good project manager can find around him the right resources, he is not obliged himself to know everything and to become an expert.

Nobody worries when the CEO of an telecom company moves to the same job in a car production company. A developper can easily change company, so can a commercial.

Why is this not true for project managers? Is the project manager the only job where expertise is requested in another subject?

I work in a bank, I am not a banker, I am a manager!

The closure of a project is the opportunity to release resources from the project, write a closure report and pull lessons learned.
It is also the opportunity to thank the resources having worked for your project.
Thanking resources after a project will probably make you sympathetic of course but it will before everything increase your visibility and ensure a commitment of the resources during your next project.

• Thank your direct team.
• Thank external resources having participated.
• Plan clearly a celebration party as soon as you plan the project.

Thank for the past. Think of the future.

Meeting - The purpose of the agenda

What is more irritating than an invitation to a meeting without a clear description of the purpose? It even happens that resources clearly refuse invitation without included agendas.
Actually an easy way to do the agenda is to include in the invitation the pre-filled template of the meeting minutes.

• For the invitees, this template will inform them immediately of the various discussion points and their respective owner.

• For the organiser, the purpose of the meeting is communicated and he is quite sure of going through all his agenda points to ease the redaction of his minutes.

Project plan - The link with resources.

When working with resources, the project plan defines clearly the roles and responsibilities of the resources allocated in the project.

An approval of the plan by the concerned resources and /or by their hierarchy, transforms the plan into a formal contract between the resource and the project.

An acceptation of the plan represent a real commitment to the project.

How to recognise a good project manager?

He usually is able to answer these 2 easy questions:

• What do you include in an integrated project plan?
• Why do you write an integrated project plan?