The Importance of Project Controls in Today’s Project Management

lorenaflorian0
May 7
2 min read

Updated: May 7

Ensuring Success through Effective Monitoring and Management

In today's rapidly changing business world, project management is crucial for organisations to achieve their strategic goals. A vital element of project management is strong project controls. These are the processes and tools that help managers oversee projects, ensuring they stay on track to meet their objectives.

Understanding Project Controls

Project controls involve methods and practices used to plan, monitor, and manage project performance. They create a framework for tracking progress, managing risks, handling changes, and making decisions to keep projects aligned with goals. These controls cover areas such as scope, schedule, cost, risk, change and performance.

Key Components of Project Controls

Scope Management: Ensures that all necessary work for project completion is included.
Schedule Management: Plans and manages project timelines to ensure tasks are completed on time, involving schedule creation, progress monitoring, and necessary adjustments.
Cost Management: Keeps the project within budget by controlling costs and using resources efficiently, involving cost estimation, budgeting, expense monitoring, and setting aside contingency for unexpected issues.
Risk Management: Focuses on identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks impacting project success, involving a risk register and developing strategies to monitor risks throughout the project.
Change Management: Handles project scope, schedule, or resource changes systematically, assessing impacts, getting approvals, and implementing changes without disrupting the project.
Reporting Performance: Involves measuring, analysing, and reporting project performance to stakeholders, creating performance reports, conducting reviews, and using data for informed decisions.

The Benefits of Project Controls

Project controls offer several advantages that contribute to project success:

Provide managers with accurate, timely information for better decision-making.
Increase visibility into project status, letting stakeholders track progress and spot potential issues early.
Improve resource management by ensuring efficient resource use, minimising waste, and maximising utilisation.
Help identify and address potential risks before they become critical issues.
Promote accountability among team members and stakeholders through clear documentation and tracking.
Schedule management processes help keep projects on track for on-time delivery.

Implementing Project Controls

To effectively implement project controls, follow a structured approach, using appropriate tools and expertise. Consider these steps:

Define project objectives clearly, ensuring all stakeholders are aligned, with SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Develop a comprehensive project controls plan that covers scope, schedule, cost, risk, change, and performance management processes.
Select project management tools and software that support project controls, like scheduling software, budgeting tools, risk management applications, and reporting platforms.
Regularly monitor project progress using established project controls, tracking milestones, updating schedules, controlling costs, assessing risks, reviewing changes, and effectively communicating with stakeholders.

Conclusion

In conclusion, project controls are very important in today’s project management because they help make projects successful. These controls offer several benefits, such as making better decisions and understanding project details more clearly. They also help in using resources wisely, reducing risks, ensuring responsibility, and completing tasks on schedule. Organisations that use project controls can better handle the challenges of today's business world and reach their important goals.