Controlling Process: 5 Steps in the Control Process of Project Management

Project managers who want to add critical infrastructure to their projects frequently turn to the Project Management Institute’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). This manual outlines a variety of tools and methods project managers can use to retain control over their projects and improve their performance.

The best practices manual outlines five “process groups,” or collections of activities that make up different stages of project management. Of these, potentially the most important is the Monitoring and Controlling Process Group, also known as the controlling process.

While all the process groups overlap somewhat and allow for custom tailoring, collectively, they serve to elucidate the mystery of what makes great projects work like magic. Understanding the controlling process allows project managers to effectively navigate the most active phase of their projects.

What Is the Controlling Process?

The Monitoring and Controlling Process in project management is a method of keeping a project on track and ensuring that appropriate standards and deadlines are met. The process requires the project manager to collect and understand information about the project, team, and circumstances to make informed decisions. The PMBOK® manual addresses the skills needed to review progress and document benchmarks.

After initiating, planning, and executing a project, the project is officially underway and the control process has begun. Keeping an eye on team performance and reacting quickly and appropriately to any emergent issues is vital for maintaining positive forward momentum. Project managers may also need to revisit the previous process groups and adjust the project as it reaches its most active stages. These activities can be broken down into five steps that allow managers to perform each individual process more effectively.

5 Controlling Process Steps in Project Management

While the control process is flexible and looks different for every project and manager, the overall structure is broken down by the PMBOK® Guide into five specific steps as follows:

Set Performance Standards

Before a project manager can begin holding their team and project to a set of standards, they first need to develop those standards. A performance standard is a goal that must be met for the project to be considered on track or successful. The project team is held to these standards throughout the active phase of the project, which gives them guidelines and benchmarks to steer their attention toward.

Standards also offer project managers a critical yardstick for understanding a project’s status. So long as standards are being met or exceeded, managers can trust that their team is on track. Meanwhile, if standards are not being met, the manager knows that they should return to the earlier process groups and revise elements like their team, timelines, or goals.

Every project will have two types of standards: tangible and intangible. Tangible standards are specific and measurable goals that can be directly monitored, while intangible standards are more abstract and can’t be actively measured.

Examples of tangible performance standards include:

• Schedules
• Budgets
• Production rates
• Overtime
• Waste

Intangible standards, meanwhile, may be:

• Team morale
• Managerial performance
• Customer satisfaction

While it is more difficult to set intangible standards, it’s still possible and valuable. Tangible and intangible elements of a project are intertwined, and improvements in one will often affect the others. Project managers who prioritize intangible standards will also see improved results in their tangible standards.

Measure Performance

Once standards have been set, the next step of the control process group is measuring and tracking performance against those standards. Measurement and monitoring is what allows a project manager to quickly and effectively respond to lagging performance and return the project to its correct course.

The simplest way to track performance is to monitor metrics connected to the standards that have been set. Tangible standards typically have clear connections to certain metrics. For example, a manager tracking their team’s adherence to a specific schedule can monitor when work is submitted and the number of revisions necessary before the work is approved. Similarly, to monitor how the team is performing regarding the budget, the manager can track spending on different supplies.

When monitoring performance regarding intangible standards, project managers may need to get creative. There’s no single metric that can be tracked to effectively monitor employee morale. Instead, managers can collect qualitative data by talking to employees, collecting anonymous surveys, and monitoring the team’s general attitude over time.

Compare Actual Performance with Standards

After collecting data regarding performance, project managers are responsible for comparing that data to the standards they set. During this phase, the manager can identify gaps between the standards and their team’s actual performance.

These gaps may be both positive — where the team is exceeding standards — and negative — where the team has failed to meet goals. Positive gaps are good news and a sign that the manager was appropriately conservative in their estimates. These gaps can be monitored and the team praised, but otherwise require no additional action.

Negative gaps spell problems for a project. Once a manager identifies a failure to achieve standards, they need to further investigate the gap to determine its size and severity. A minor gap may be a simple variation that can be safely left alone. For example, if a team is one day behind schedule, it’s possible that the project will naturally return to schedule. However, if the project has fallen a week behind schedule, this is a more significant deviation that may need to be addressed.

Analyze Deviations

Once a project manager has identified places where their team is failing to meet standards, it’s necessary to understand why those failures are occurring. If a project manager has invested appropriate time and effort into the previous process groups, then deviations should be rare. When they do occur, it’s a sign that the manager did not fully account for all elements of the project’s circumstances or requirements. Identifying the elements that were missed is essential for effectively revising the standards or activities involved in the project to achieve the original goal.

Analyzing deviations involves a thorough examination of both the standards and the team’s performance. The specific nature of the gap between the two will assist project managers in identifying the cause. One example may be a team that is consistently failing to meet deadlines. If the lag between the intended deadline and the submission of the work is steadily growing, the team may not have the skills, drive, or manpower to accomplish high-quality work in the time allotted.

Managers should also consider tangentially related metrics to better understand the root cause of deviations. In the example above, a project manager could check the number of overtime hours recorded by the team. If they are regularly recording significant overtime, then the problem is likely a simple lack of manpower. However, if overtime is rarely recorded, or only recorded shortly before a deadline, then the team may not be motivated to put in the work to accomplish goals on time.

Take Corrective Actions

The last step of the process is acting to improve the identified deviations. When positive gaps are identified, managers should avoid changing anything until the project is complete. These points where performance has exceeded expectations give the project buffer room in case of later delays or setbacks.

Negative performance gaps, however, require action by the manager. For the project to reach a successful conclusion, something must change. The specific actions to take will depend on the size and severity of the deviation. A team that’s one day behind schedule may need nothing more than a reminder of the importance of the project to increase their effort and get back on track. Managers may need to do more if the project is a week behind schedule, such as hiring additional team members or requiring mandatory overtime.

The sooner a manager identifies a deviation from their standards, the smaller that deviation is likely to be. As a result, the necessary corrective actions are also likely to be smaller and less resource intensive. This is why the Monitoring and Controlling Process is considered a critical part of project management. Consistently and frequently tracking progress against standards permits the project manager to perform smaller corrective actions and make fewer changes overall while still accomplishing the project’s goals on time.

The Monitoring and Controlling Process Group presents a detailed set of skills and knowledge directly applicable toward implementing the decisions needed to sustain the most active part of the project. While moving forward with a project, a top project manager continuously reviews progress and makes necessary adjustments to increase workflow effectiveness.

Project managers looking to increase their understanding of the PMBOK® Guide can seek the advice of leaders in the field by becoming active in a local chapter of the Project Management Institute or by enrolling in a course through Villanova’s online Certificate in Applied Project Management program.