successful project management - Commonwealth of Learning

Chapter 8
Project Control and Evaluation
For effective control:
Regular meetings,
Regular reports,
Regular reviews,
Budgetary control.
Learning Outcomes
After working through this chapter, you should be able to:
• define project control , delegation, and evaluation;
• collect information more systematically for use in the evaluation of the project;
• demonstrate how the task, the individual member of the team, and the team
needs intersect for better performance;
• explain measures that can be used to rescue a project that is in danger of
failing;
• specify the benefits of delegation and apply principles of delegation to typical
project management situations; and
• make use of the project evaluation form to capture relevant information for
decision-making.
Introduction
Every step we have taken in managing a given project up to this point is an aspect of
control. Its purpose was to ensure that the stipulated tasks and milestones were
achieved at various points. Control implies two things, namely, power over people
and the decision to make decisions. In this chapter we are going to examine to
examine some of the issues about project control that help us evaluate the success
or lack of success of a given project.
Control measures
The concept of ‘control’ has a power connotation. Control can be regarded as the act
of comparing progress to the plan so that corrective action can be taken when there
is deviation from the planned performance. This view of control presumes the use of
information as its ingredient rather than power. That is why we talk of management
information systems that can be used to achieve control in projects.
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