A Guide to Project Planning, Scheduling, Monitoring and Control

“Planning, Scheduling, Monitoring and Control – The Practical Project Management of Time, Cost and Risk” is the APM’s guide that lays out a practical and comprehensive approach that is useful for project control in a range of industries. This is where you will find the practical terms for the recommended best practice when it comes to the implementation of project planning and control.

The benefits of effective project planning and control

Through a range of different techniques and approaches, project planning and control aim to establish a range of common standards and processes that can provide both individuals and companies with a range of benefits.

Techniques and approaches

The range of techniques and approaches that project planning and control use includes:

Scope management – This is the process where the outcomes, outputs and benefits of the project are defined, identified and controlled. “Scope” in project management refers to the total of all of the outcomes, outputs and benefits of the project and the work that is needed to complete them.

Requirements management – This is the process that is applied to documenting, analysing, prioritising, tracing and agreeing on the requirements of a project and then controlling any change and communication to all relevant stakeholders. This is a continuous process for the duration of the project, with a requirement being a capability that the outcome of the project needs to conform to.

Works information and statement of works – a statement of work (SOW) is a document that is legally binding and captures and defines all of the work management (works information) aspects of a project. The activities, deliverables and timetable of the project need to be noted down in good detail in order to create a great project plan. This is one of the first documents that a project manager is required to make.

Stakeholder management – this is the process of creating and then maintaining good relationships with those individuals who have the most significant impact on your work. Good lines of communication can ensure that you keep them “on side”.

Dependency management – this is the process of recognising, anticipating and then managing the dependencies that exist between the tasks, processes, people and systems involved in a project. For dependency management to be effective it needs to be able to reduce process variability whilst also increasing predictability.

Breakdown structures – there are a number of breakdown structures that should be considered under PPC. These are:

• PBS (product breakdown structure)
• WBS (work breakdown structure)
• OBS (organisational breakdown structure)
• RAM (responsibility assignment matrix)
• CBS (cost breakdown structure)
• RBS (risk breakdown structure

Traditional project management is based on all of these concepts. However, those disciplines that are emerging, particularly those linked to complexity theory, believe that those systems that self-organise, such as the project team, cannot be understood when you look at all of the individual parts of a team in a separate fashion.

Breakdowns are a useful tool that can be used by the project manager in order to develop insights into a project.