The Complete Guide To Project Monitoring

When the work schedule has been released and the project has begun, it is important to monitor the progress of the project. In order to complete the project on time and under budget, it is necessary to keep track of what is happening, track the agenda’s progress, hire schedulers, and make any necessary revisions to the plans and timetables.

What is Project Monitoring? #

Project Monitoring is the activity of observing, controlling, evaluating,  and supervising activities, which are performed by project managers at every level of activity implementation to ensure that the work schedule management, budget management, targeted results, KPIs, and other required actions are proceeding as planned.

To put it simply, project monitoring means keeping a watch on all tasks and project activities to ensure that the project is being executed as intended.

The Objectives of Project Monitoring #

As you probably know, Project monitoring is stage four of the project life cycle. Monitoring a project serves numerous purposes. It identifies the difficulties that have occurred or may arise during the project’s execution and proposes solutions for an efficient progression.

Effective monitoring helps determine whether the intended results are being accomplished as planned, what activities are required to achieve the desired results during project execution, and whether these initiatives have a beneficial impact on project execution.

These are the objectives of project monitoring;

• Evaluating whether the tasks are executed according to a project planning.
• Identifying problems that arise so that they can be immediately addressed
• Assessing whether the work and management patterns used are appropriate to achieve project objectives.
• Knowing the relationship between activities and objectives to obtain a measure of progress
• Adapt to a changing environment, without deviating from the goal

The Advantages of Project Monitoring #

The advantages and benefit of project monitoring for project manager or the person in charge of the project are;

1. Project monitoring becomes one of  management functions; to control or to supervise.
2. Conducting project monitoring shows accountability performance.
3. Project monitoring is useful to keep the stakeholders informed about the project.
4. It helps assist in determining the steps for the next project activity.
5. Project monitoring is useful as a basis for further monitoring and evaluation.
6. Helps project managers in charge to know the deficiencies that need to be corrected and maintain good performance.

Types of Project Monitoring #

There are at least 3 types of aspect of project monitoring, there are;

1. The input #

The input aspects of the project include  human labor or talents , funds, materials, equipment, working hours, data, management policies, etc. needed to carry out project activities.

2. The process #

The process aspect of the project deals with how the project is being executed. This includes work methods, tools, approvals, deadlines, etc.

3. The output #

The output aspect of the project monitoring refers to quantitative and qualitative results. Project monitoring can produce deliverables that are either;

1. Project status report
2. Project management dashboard

Project Monitoring may be accomplished by:

• Staff Meetings, which may take place weekly, monthly, or annually. You can also check during the daily stand up meeting.
• Learning forums through Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and surveys.
• Participatory assessments by the project stakeholder.
• Statistics and report

Step-by-step Guide to Project Monitoring #

1. Create a monitoring and evaluation plan using software #

The first step is to establish a procedure for monitoring and evaluating your efforts. You need a platform or system to capture and arrange your data in a single location in order to organize your initiatives. You should utilize project management software to monitor the various phases of a project.

Here is an example of how teams monitor their project scope with FoxPlan:

• Assign roles and responsibility: Who should be charged for monitoring and evaluating each stage of the project? How will they evaluate and measure the success of the project? As early as feasible, assign roles to stakeholders and compile a list of their tasks. You can use RACI chart to help you as well.
• Identify project’s bottleneck: What were some challenges you or your team encountered during the project? Be sure to identify these instances, including how you responded to them and the outcome.
• Develop an evaluation strategy: Will you do evaluations weekly or at the conclusion of each project phase? Collect input from your staff to determine how they believe workflows can be enhanced.

2. Real-time performance monitoring #

You need a real-time perspective of the situation to monitor your projects and make good decisions. Real-time performance monitoring allows you to follow the development each team member and also to allocate resources.

Here is an example of how the team use FoxPlan to monitor real-time project implementation:

3. Evaluate the project #

Project monitoring and evaluation is all about answering these questions; Are you able to meet your deadlines on time? Is it possible that there were some setbacks that you are not expecting?

So, in this step you need to take a look at your project’s KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and compare them to your current report and statistics. Reviewing these reports can provide you a better idea of how your team is doing in relation to their objectives and show you where timeframes begin to diverge.

4. Improve project workflow #

If a project missed the deadline, investigate further to see the reason why. What were the various obstacles? What was the ultimate resolution? You need to record all the issues and also make the documentation on how you actually solve the issue. This could be useful for the future project in case you and your team experience the same issue.  By knowing how to handle the same issue in the next project, you can streamline and improve the future project’s workflow.

5. Keep learning and making improvements #

Monitoring and evaluating projects allows you to keep an eye on projects, analyze their progress, and enhance processes. A single modification can have a significant impact on future projects. Keep learning and making improvements on your project process is one of the criteria on becoming successful project manager.

FoxPlan: Project Monitoring software #

Despite the fact that the monitoring process might be overwhelming, the correct tool can be of great assistance. There are other options for monitoring your projects with a dynamic application, like FoxPlan which allows you to view and combine Timelines, Kanban and a Gantt Chart in a single location.  Not only that, FoxPlan also provides multiple, configurable dashboards for tracking activities.

Summary #

In an ideal world, everything would be finished on schedule and on budget and all of your projects would go as planned without hiccups. However, this does not always occur in practice; your employees may miss deadlines owing to personal emergencies, external stakeholders may withdraw without explanation, and so on.

Project monitoring is one of the essential processes for the project management strategy to achieve the project’s objectives. With project monitoring, you can determine the most effective strategy to manage your resources and regularly evaluate the state of your project to ensure its success. So, what are you waiting for? Create your FREE FoxPlan account and monitor your project today!