Marginalia

• This process is involved into one of the 'hen and egg problems' of the PMBOK®: On the one hand the process Integrated Change Control generates the rejected change requests as output, which become an input of the process Monitor and Control Project Work. Hence Monitor and Control Project Work should be a successor of Integrated Change Control. One the other hande the process Monitor and Control Project Work generates the recommended corrective actions, recommended preventive actions, recommended defect repair and requested changes, which become an input of the process Integrated Change Control. Hence Integrated Change Control should be a successor of Monitor and Control Project Work. This is a contradiction - regarded from a stong viewpoint. But there seems to be an intended solution: Monitor and Control Projekt Work gets Work Performance Information (generated by Direct and Manage Project Work) and generates 'recommended changes'. Integrated Change Control gets 'recommended changes' (generated by Monitor and Control Projekt Work) and generates 'approved changes'. And the approved changes become input of some of the processes of the Planning Process Group or of the Executing Process Group. Therefore we can deduce an (idealized) intended sequence:

  1. Initialize the project
    • WHILE NOT (READY)
  2. Develop Project Management Plan
    • [concerning the requested changes: GOTO (5) ]
  3. Direct & Manage Project Execution
    • [concerning the requested changes: GOTO (5) ]
  4. Monitor & Control Project Work
  5. Integrated Change Control
    • LOOP: GOTO (1) and / or (2)
  6. Close Project

(1.5) Monitor and Control Project Work

(1.5.1) Process Input

... generated by predecessor processes

(1.5.2) Process Definition

Monitor and Control Project Work is the process for "[...] monitoring and controlling the processes used to initiate, plan execute, and close the project to meet the perfomance objectives defined in the project management plan" (comp. PMBOK3, p. 78).

"Monitoring includes collecting, measuring, and disseminating performance information, and assessing measurements and trends to effect process improvements"

Roughly spoken the main task of Monitor and Control Project Work is to "compare actual project performance against the project management plan" and to deduce trends and actions which are able to support the meeting of the project targets (comp. PMBOK3, p. 94).

  • Part of the Monitoring sand Controlling Process Group
  • Father process of the following child processes, which also use the input and generate or modify the output of this process
    • Scope Verification
    • Perform Quality Control
    • Manage Project Team
    • Performance Reporting
    • Manage Stakeholders
    • Risk Monitoring and Control
    • Contract Administration
  • Member of Knowledge Area Project Integration Management

(1.5.3) Tools and Techniques

PMBOK Mentioned Methods

  • Project management methodology is the set of tools and methods used to execute the act of project managament
  • Project management information system is the set of software and tools "[...] used by the project management team so support generation of a preliminary scope statement"
  • Earned value technique is the multiply used technique to make the planned cost value of an activity as its maximally earnable value, to split the value into portions and combine these portions to a timeline and to a set of criteria, which must be fullfilled to earn the value really.  Now one has a baseline against one can measure the real performance of the project
  • Expert judgement is used to execute all the sub-processes of this process

(comp. PMBOK3, pp. 95)

Open Source Tools

  • NN

(1.5.4) Process Output

  • Recommended Corrective Actions "[...] are documented recommendations required to bring expected future project performance into conformance with the project management plan"
  • Recommended Preventive Actions "[...] are documented recommendations that reduce the probability of negative consequences associated with project risks"
  • Forecasts are "[...] estimates or predictions of conditions and events in the project's future based on information and knowledge available at the time of the forecast"
  • Recommended Defect Repair are defects being found "during the quality inspection and audit process" and being recommended for correction
  • Requested Changes  are request "[...] to expand or reduce project scope, to modify policies or procedures, to modify projct cost or budget, or to revise the project schedule [...]"

(comp. PMBOK3, pp. 96 a. 93)

(1.5.5) Output Using Successor Processes

Successors using the initially generated output as own input(1):

Processes using the updates as input(2):

  1. For details see FAQ::Q001:1