Burn up and burn down charts

Another way of monitoring project progress is through burn up and burn down charts. This
has been gaining popularity due to agile project management approaches. In both the charts,
the scope is along the vertical axis and the time on horizontal axis. In case of burndown chart,
the remaining amount of work that needs to be completed is plotted on the chart. The slope of
line indicates the rate of progress. In case of the burnup chart, two lines are plotted. One
denotes the amount of work completed and the other corresponds to the total amount of work
yet to be completed. Both of these charts aid the project manager in monitoring the project
progress.
There are several other types of report that come with the software for project management.
Care must be taken while choosing a project manager software. You can go through surveys
and reviews about the software and match its capability with organization’s requirement.
Users of these softwares, project managers must collaboratively decide about it. Some points
to keep in mind would be
1. User friendliness- the software user will have his/ her role in the project. Using the
software should not look like additional task. These should include manuals, help
screens, tutorials. Giving everyone training about the software will also help.
2. Schedules- important point to note is what kind of features or capabilities does it offer
for creating schedules. Should have Gantt chart and all the required elements for
tracking the project progress and any changes made to the project in terms of time,
cost and scope.
3. Budget- should have ability to create budget
4. Reports- check the report format available with the software. Does it meet the
organization’s needs at different levels i.e. does the report so produce cater to the
requirements of lower level workers, project manager and the top management
5. Graphics and charts- what kind of graphics and charts are available to denote
networks, technical dependencies, project progress
6. Migration- the ability to interface with existing softwares, spreadsheets and word
processors. Should have the ability to transfer data between the existing softwares.
In this session we have briefly discussed about project monitoring. It is upto the organization
to devise the mechanism for project monitoring keeping in mind people and technical control.

Project Control
In the previous session, we talked about how planning monitoring and control are
interrelated and discussed in detail about project monitoring In this session we talk about the
project control. Control forms a very important part in the project execution. Monitoring is
done through comparing information collected and comparing it with the actual plan. If the
actual and desired performance differ, then it calls for an action by the project manager.

Although, the project manager is responsible for keeping the project on track, the other
personnel- the senior management, and may be the Project Management Office if there is
one- also have a role to play. Risk management is also a form of control where on an ongoing
basis, risks are being identified, analysed mitigated and controlled. When we are talking
about control, what aspect of project are we trying to control? It will be the same that we
have spoken about throughtout- the project objectives, specifically cost, scope and time.
With all the tools, techniques, processes, best practices, project managers still lose sight of
these targets especially in large projects with enormous work detail, and coordination with
multiple teams. If you take a look at some of the problems encountered that affected the
project progress, you will see that most of these had human element. Very few of the issue
will be technical. Lets take a look at the most cited issue in projects- requirements not clear,
requirements kept changing, scope of work increased, client requests some changes, time
estimates not adequate. These are all result of human action.

A project is a mixture of human and mechanism, and at times random chance, the control
must be dealt with caution. First, let’s examine the basic purpose of control and then go
through the process of control.

The basic purpose of control is to regulate and conserve. The project manager as a regulator
must protect the physical assets of the organization, human resources and financial resources.
Controlling physical assets means controlling the use of physical assets that also involves
inventorying the equipment and material, inspect them and provide for proper storage as well.
Control of human resources means maintaining growth and development of people. The
financial control involves conformance to standards in financial practices and record keeping.

The control process would deal with deciding issues such as what is to be controlled, how it
will be measured, at what point the control will be exerted or in other terms how much
deviation to tolerate? Once this is decided, next comes what kind of interventions and how to
correct these deviations.

There are three basic types of control- cybernetic control, go/ no go control and post control.

Cybernetic control is primarily for automatic operations where output is measured through
sensors which is then compared with a set of predetermined standards. Go/ no go controls is
used to see if the preconditions have been met. Various project documents such as project
plan, budget and schedule, all are control documents giving the project manager the
predefined milestones as the checkpoints. Control can be exercised at any detail as mentioned
in the plan. One such go/ no go approach is phase gate processes. In this process, the project
is controlled at various phase of the life cycle to ensure that it remains on course and achieves
the objectives. Discovery driven planning and learning plans- instead of comparing numbers
to evaluate project progress, the project is tested against initial set of assumption such as
customer needs, performance, market needs etc. The assumptions for each stage are checked
for validity. If assumptions are not met, then there are two courses of action- replant the
project or revise the assumption. In case none of the plans can meet the assumptions, its time
to terminate the project. Another control process is Post control which is applied through
formal document which describe the project objective; milestone, gates and budget; the final
report on result and finally the recommendations for performance and process improvement.
The cybernetic and go/ no go process are for ongoing projects. Post control is directed toward
improving the performance of future projects.

Human factors in project evaluation and control

For all the topics that we covered, after discussing processes, tools and techniques, we have
always discussed about the human factors and emphasized on team skills and interpersonal
skills.
Lets see some behavioural issues that may affect reporting for monitoring and control. It is
human tendency to report strong results in the interest of looking good. It may also be
because organizations incentivise positive news or result. At times, project managers feel the
implicit or explicit pressure from the senior management which they pass on to their tem
members. So, there may be various scenarios or reasons whether on the part of the individual
or collectively by the team to not report actual performance. So here the question is not about
accurately matching the performance of the project with the planned one, it is a problem
rooted in human behaviour. Whatever mechanism is adopted for monitoring and control, it
will depend on the measurable data about project outcomes over set periods of time.
Monitoring and control techniques such as Earned Value will answer the “what” questions
such as “what is the current status”, “what tasks are delayed” or “what is the efficiency” but
they can not answer “why” questions such as “why is the performance suboptimal”, “why
activities are not on schedule”. Various researches that examined the successful and
unsuccessful projects have put importance on managerial and human behavioural aspects of
project management. It is relatively easy to collect and interpret financial data or schedule
data. But how do we measure human behaviour such as attitude, leadership skill, team
support etc.

Here we are taking the 10 factor instrument developed by Pinto and Selvin that measures the
performance of project teams. Taking together the information provided by the tools used for
collecting and measuring variance against the project baseline and team behaviour, a
comprehensive vision of the project can be developed.

Let’s take a look at the 10 factors proposed by Pinto and Selvin that they found to be
predictive of success.

1. Does the Project mission relate to the underlying purpose of the project- it has been
well established that clearly defining objectives and ultimate benefits lead to success.
 2. Top management support in terms of authority, direction and allocation of sufficient
resources, and also showing their confidence for support in the event of crisis.
3. Project plan and schedule
4. Client consultation to determine if their needs are being met
5. Personnel that includes recruitment, selection and training of project team members
6. Technical tasks here refers to the technical skills that project personnel must have and
the technical support to perform their tasks.
7. Client acceptance- the final stage when the project efficacy is to be determined i.e.
determining that the client for whom the project was initiated, would accept it
8. Monitoring and feedback refers to the control process at each stage of the project
9. Communication- important for within the project team and also with the client and
rest of the organization. It is a necessity to exchange information and also serves as a
feedback mechanism
10. We come to the last point which is equally important that is troubleshooting. No
matter how carefully, the project was planned; problems are inevitable. So, the project
manager must make adequate arrangements in the plan not only to react to problems
but also foresee them

These 10 points that we have discussed that are aimed to make a project successful, if you
notice have been covered during each of the phases of the project life cycle. It is again to
emphasize that tools and techniques will do their job but softer side of management is equally
important and in some cases make or break the deal.

In these sessions, we have discussed a variety of approaches to monitor and control projects.
While there are many models available as well as software packages for project management,
the key is to recognize strength and weaknesses of each of the available alternatives and
developing the one that best suits the organization. And most important point, do not forget
people issues. No software can handle that.

Project audit