Project Management Course: Project Monitoring, Control & EVM

Identify key concepts of monitoring and control, outline practical processes, and emphasize maintaining a healthy project throughout execution as this section lays the foundation for the course.

Identify a need and execute a pre feasibility study to generate viable solution options, estimate high level costs, and inform management decisions on resource allocation and return on investment.

Monitor and control focus areas keep the project aligned with the project management plan by managing scope, schedule, cost, quality, risks, procurements, and stakeholder engagement through change control procedures.

Explore monitoring and control of project work per PMBOK, using tracking and earned value method, interviews, and reporting against the project management plan to identify variances and guide change requests.

Combat the stigma of monitoring by engaging the team in collaborative planning and educating members on the purpose and benefits, enabling preventive action and better project outcomes.

Discover how project managers monitor and control by setting a performance standard, comparing actual to standard, and applying corrective actions across scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, procurement, with team involvement.

Explore earned value management essentials, including the earned value management matrix, metric calculations, and interpretation, plus projections and performance metrics for project health monitoring.

Master earned value management, an integrated technique that combines cost and schedule reporting to monitor projects using actual cost, plan value, and earned value.

Learn earned value management metrics, including cost variance, CPI, schedule variance, and SPI, to compare earned value, actual cost, and planned value for budget and schedule insights.

Explore earned value management forecasting for cost and schedule, calculating actual cost, budget at completion, cost performance index, and estimate at completion, using variances and risk buffers to guide interventions.

Learn how earned value management applies at both work package and project levels to monitor health, forecast costs and schedule, and report with CPI, SPI, and color-coded performance metrics.

Apply earned value management to a practical project on day 10, calculating earned value, planned value, variances, and performance indices (CPI, SPI) to forecast budget and schedule outcomes.

Learn earned value management to monitor health, compute performance metrics, forecast outcomes, apply at work package and project levels, use three-point estimation for accuracy, and avoid misinterpretation with reporting tips.

Explore change control within project monitoring and control, outlining what constitutes a change, the purpose and building blocks of an effective change control system, and impact analysis methods.

Explore change control procedures and systems for submitting change requests, analyzing impacts, obtaining approvals or rejections, implementing changes, and monitoring effects on scope, costs, schedule, and risk.

Assess direct and indirect change impacts through a five-step planning procedure, aligning with impact analysis, engage stakeholders and subject matter experts, and document findings to inform change control decisions.

Establish a change approval system within change control, granting the project manager authority for internal changes and sponsor approval for scope, time, and cost, with impact assessment and emergency procedures.

Review a practical change request template, including project number, description, reason, requester and manager details, and the process from assessment to final approval by the change control board.

Coordinate and monitor project changes through integrated change control, reviewing change requests against baselines per PMBOK, engaging the change control board, and updating plans and documents.

Explore the basics of project health meetings within the monitoring and control process group, including weekly status sessions, monthly servicing sessions, and recording templates.

Host a weekly statusing meeting to surface project level issues and update the risk register, with minimal attendees and a concise one-page action log for rapid, proactive risk responses.

The monthly statusing meeting reviews scope, time, and cost performance, discusses concerns, updates the action plan, and shares earned value metrics and risks and issues with sponsors and stakeholders.

Utilize weekly issue lists and monthly one-page performance summaries to track cost, schedule, risks, and customer feedback for effective project monitoring.

Explore how informal weekly status meetings between the project manager and team leaders and formal meetings with sponsors and senior stakeholders drive honest progress monitoring and accurate project performance reflections.