Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 8th Edition

CHAPTER 10

Monitoring and Information Systems

In this chapter, perhaps more than in any other, it would be helpful if we could consider everything at once. How is it possible to discuss monitoring without specifying what is to be controlled? On the other hand, how is it possible to specify a control system without understanding what aspects of a project are subject to measurement and how the measurement is to be accomplished? As a matter of fact, one could just as easily argue that evaluation, the primary subject of Chapter 12, should precede both monitoring and control. The placement of these chapters is arbitrary, and readers may feel free to read them in any order. Irrespective of the order in which one considers these subjects, however, their interdependence is clear.

Our fundamental approach to evaluation and control of projects is that these activities are, at base, the opposite sides of project selection and planning. The logic of selection, such as by the Project Portfolio Process, or any of the methods described in Chapter 2, dictates the components to be evaluated, and the details of planning expose the elements to be controlled. The ability to measure is prerequisite to either. Thus, all of the project's objectives as delineated in the project selection process must be examined and measures for each included in the monitoring system. If a weighted factor model is used, the measures can usually be integrated into a single evaluation measure. For a continuously operating ...