Module 9 – Communication and Reporting Performance – Closing Out the Project
Module 9 – Communication and Reporting Performance – Closing Out the Project
We talked earlier about confidence – in the PM team and in the project itself. Clients need to be confident, establish trust; the PM needs to be confident that team members and contractors/suppliers will carry out their tasks in accordance with the PM Plan; team members need to have confidence in the PM and in each other and all stakeholders need to have confidence in the project’s outcome. In many organisations, one of the most common problems is the lack or poor quality of communication. In project management, with time, cost, and quality pressures and constraints, effective communication is not only vital, it is a major means of controlling the project.
Project Control
Project control is a simple process to ensure that everything planned for the project’s completion is delivered according to the project plan and schedule. The decision to develop a formal or informal control system is entirely based on the level of potential risk and the expected benefits that it may bring to the completion of the project. Informal control systems may include set meetings, e-mails, and informal supervision while more formal systems involve accounting, internal audits, testing, and other types of periodic risk management reports.
An effective control system includes:
- pre-set project reviews according to the project’s data structure
- continuing reviews in all phases of the project life cycle
- one or more performance metrics
According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), control and monitoring are joint processes that occur within a project and between the project’s environments to detect whether any corrective or preventive actions are needed to keep the project on track.
If you have ever seen films or photographs of Roman chariot racing, you may have seen the charioteer (driver) trying to control up to four horses, at pace, around an arena. To negotiate the curves at each end of the stadium, the driver had to use great skill to slow down the horses on the inside and allow the horses on the outside to increase their pace so that all horses, the chariot, and the driver could safely negotiate the bends in the course and arrive at the finish line without crashing. Managing a project is very similar! The PM must communicate with all team members, clients, contractors, suppliers, and stakeholders to ensure that the project reaches the finish line, within time, cost, and quality (i.e., iron triangle). Changes to the project’s scope along the way (scope creep) can mean that negotiating the ‘bends’ in the course of the project can become very tricky. To ensure success and prevent scope creep, communication must be efficient and effective.
In this module we will examine:
- Communication processes and consequences
- Managing project meetings throughout the project
- Final Project Implementation Overview
- Reporting and controlling the project’s true performance with progress, status, and