Guide to Project Management: Getting it right and achieving lasting benefit, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9

Project delivery

ONCE A PROJECT HAS BEEN PLANNED and initiated, its managers must make sure it remains on track. The common-sense control cycle illustrated in Figure 9.1 is no different from that applied to business as usual.

9.1 The control cycle

As the plan reveals what needs to be done and by whom, the work must be delegated. As the work is carried out, the management team must continue to know how well the team is performing and whether the project is forecast to deliver according to the time, cost, quality and benefit expectations. Usually, having monitored these elements, some reports are produced to record the findings. They are circulated not merely for information, but to ensure that, where necessary, corrective action is taken to bring the project back on track. Only on completion of the control step can the plan be updated with the actions taken so that the cycle can be repeated.

Anyone who has to manage an aspect of the project should know this cycle and follow it to keep control of the work for which they are responsible.

One feature which ensures the cycle works effectively is the way it depends on effective escalation management. Projects quickly descend into chaos without rules governing who is authorised to make which decision, so there must be a way of determining who has control of the project at any time. The concept and practice of escalation management ...