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Monitoring and Controlling

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Monitoring & Controlling The Plan

Monitoring & Controlling measures performance against baselines and applies change control to steer outcomes toward objectives.

What it is Monitoring & Controlling

M&C keeps a project honest. During M&C, you compare what actually happened to what you planned. This is the time you monitor various baselines like scope, schedule, cost, quality, |resources, and risk. to spot variances early. When you find variance early in the project, it makes enacting deliberate adjustments mush less complicated and much more likely to get the project back on track. This discipline runs continuously alongside every other group: Executing produces data; you measure it against the plan; when something’s off, you evaluate options, decide, and communicate clearly.

What this looks like in practice.

  • Track real performance against baselines and call out red health so everyone sees risks in time to act.
  • Use a simple, truthful status report to surface issues and ask for help or decisions.
  • When change is proposed (or required), analyze the impact across time, cost, scope, quality, resources, and risk; then route a formal change for a decision and update the baseline if approved.
  • Keep stakeholders informed with concise, timely updates—the good, the bad, and the fix.

Monitoring vs. Controlling (short takes)

Monitoring is the process of continuously measuring and analyzing project performance so that issues are surfaced early and corrective options remain open. It answers questions like: Where are we compared to the plan? What trends are forming? What risks are emerging? The foundation of monitoring comes from the Project Management Plan, which holds the baselines and subsidiary plans for scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, communications, risks, procurements, and stakeholders. Alongside it, project documents, such as assumptions, issue, and change logs, requirements traceability, the risk register, lessons learned, and updated [[3-glossary#|forecasts;]] provide the evidence for analysis. Real-time work-performance-data flows in from Executing, while [[3-agreements, EEF’s, and OPA’s ensure that monitoring is conducted in the right contractual and organizational context.

To process this information, monitoring uses a toolkit of [[3-glossary#]] techniques, including variance and trend analysis, earned value management (EVM), forecasting methods like estimate at completion (EAC), and root-cause or reserve analysis. Results are then visualized through data-representation tools such as dashboards, burn charts, and control charts. Decisions are guided by decision-methods like expert judgment, multi-criteria analysis, and collaborative meetings, while pmis-and-reporting-systems provide the infrastructure for sharing status updates. Monitoring also emphasizes risk-reassessment-and-audits as well as stakeholder and communication feedback loops, keeping the process iterative and responsive.

The outputs of monitoring create decision-ready artifacts. work-performance-reports consolidate the findings into tailored updates for stakeholders. change-requests may emerge when corrective, preventive, or defect repair actions are needed. Updates ripple into the project-management-plan itself (subsidiary plans and baselines), project-documents such as logs and lessons learned, and opas that capture organizational knowledge. Stakeholder communications are updated as well, ensuring that information is timely and transparent.

In short, monitoring acts as the project’s diagnostic system—detecting performance signals, comparing them to thresholds, and highlighting where intervention may be required. It sets the stage for controlling, where the actual treatment—decisions, approvals, and implementation—takes place.

Monitoring. Ongoing measurement and analysis. You observe results, compare them to baselines and thresholds, and surface variances early so options remain open. Monitoring answers: Where are we vs. plan? What’s trending? What risks are emerging?

Variance, Change, and Communication

Variance, change, and communication form a continuous cycle in the monitoring-and-controlling-process-group. When a variance is detected, the team begins with root-cause analysis to understand why it occurred. From there, options are evaluated: take a corrective action to bring the project back in line, apply a preventive action to reduce future risk, or accept the variance with a documented rationale. If the response requires altering a baseline, perform-integrated-change-control ensures that the change is formally reviewed, approved, and incorporated into updated plans and baselines. Throughout this process, communicate remains essential—status, decisions, and next steps must be shared clearly and on time with the right stakeholders. This discipline prevents silent scope creep, sustains trust, and ensures that variances are anticipated when proper planning and contingency strategies are in place.

Example in Practice

In CMPA 3302, Monitoring and Controlling is like checking weekly work against the rubric to confirm progress toward full marks. After Executing produces drafts—such as new category pages or interlinks—each deliverable is compared against the assignment rubric and module requirements. If something is missing, such as a page without three heading levels, an absent image, or a broken wikilink, that gap is treated as a variance.

Corrective actions are then applied: revising structure, adding missing elements, or refining content until it matches expectations. Much like integrated-change-control, each adjustment is intentional and logged, preventing scope creep while maintaining alignment with the baseline requirements. Every GitHub commit becomes part of the monitoring-and-controlling process, recording changes and providing traceability. By the time the assignment is submitted, deliverables are validated, the site functions as expected, and the evidence for a 100% rubric score is clearly documented.

How Variance Becomes Action

Variance management in the Monitoring and Controlling Process Group follows a clear cycle that turns detection into action. It begins with detect-and-diagnose, where project results are compared to baselines and thresholds to identify deviations. This step often includes root-cause analysis to determine why the variance occurred and whether it signals a deeper issue.

Once the cause is understood, the next step is choose-a-response. Here the project manager and team evaluate options: implement a corrective action to bring performance back in line, apply a preventive action to avoid future problems, or accept the variance with a documented rationale.

If the response requires altering a baseline, the process moves into decide-the-change. A formal change request is submitted, evaluated for its impact on scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, risks, and stakeholder expectations, then either approved or rejected through perform-integrated-change-control. Approved changes result in updates to the plan and baselines, ensuring the project remains guided by accurate references.

Finally, the cycle closes with communicate. Status, decisions, and next steps must be shared with the right stakeholders at the right time. Transparent communication ensures alignment across the team, sustains stakeholder trust, and prevents misunderstandings as the project adapts.

Together, these steps—diagnosis, response selection, decision-making, and communication—form the heartbeat of variance management, transforming raw deviations into controlled, purposeful project adjustments.

Quick example

A deliverable misses a requirement. You flag it yellow, note the cause (missing content, not scope change), fix the gap (corrective action), and confirm the page now meets the acceptance criteria. If meeting the requirement would blow the schedule or budget, you’d instead raise a change for a decision—then update the baseline if approved and tell stakeholders exactly what changed and why.

Key Processes in the Monitoring & Controlling Group

The Monitoring and Controlling Process Group is built around a set of key processes that ensure projects remain aligned with their objectives. At the center is monitor-and-control-project-work, which involves tracking, reviewing, and reporting overall performance against the baselines. This creates the visibility needed to understand where the project stands at any given moment. When variances arise, they feed into perform-integrated-change-control, where change requests are evaluated, approved, or rejected, and baselines are updated as necessary to reflect informed decisions.

Scope management is addressed through validate-scope and control-scope. Validation confirms that deliverables meet stakeholder requirements and gain formal acceptance, while control prevents scope creep by keeping the work tightly aligned with the agreed scope baseline. These efforts are complemented by control-schedule and control-costs, which use tools like earned value management (EVM) and trend analysis to manage variances and forecast outcomes.

Risk management plays a continuous role, with monitor-risks ensuring that triggers and assumptions are tracked, while implement-risk-responses executes predefined strategies and recalibrates plans when necessary. Alongside risks, other areas must also be observed closely. monitor-communications, control-quality, control-resources, and monitor-stakeholder-engagement confirm that the project’s communication, quality, resource, and engagement plans are being followed and remain effective.

Taken together, these processes form the backbone of control. Importantly, control does not mean simply saying “no” to change—it means making informed-decisions that balance constraints and keep the project focused on its objectives.

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