Controlling Projects According to Plan

Controlling Projects According to Plan

Jason Muhle

BQM 444 – Project Management

March 16, 2014

Brian Weaver

Southwestern College Professional Studies

Controlling Projects According to Plan

According to Meredith and Mantel, “effective program management is a function of properly defining the work, budgets, and schedules and then monitoring progress.” (Pg 513) In this paper we’ll discuss the project manager’s abilities to control a project, and to keep within the confines of the plan. This can be a very difficult thing to achieve, because it is difficult to predict how everything and everyone will actually come together during the process. You could have a very detailed and strict plan, but any number of things could pop up and throw your plan completely out of whack.

The paper we are discussing today, Controlling Projects According to Plan is a study on hundreds of project managers and the challenges they perceived in controlling their projects, the final report including 304 project leaders from 183 technical projects. We’ll discuss the results in four parts as presented in the paper, and then will go over questions that are asked at the end.

The Reasons for Poor Project Control

When it comes to discussing the reasons for poorly run projects, the managers and the senior management are at odds over the main reasons for why the project didn’t go according to plan. This can mostly be attributed to their different viewpoints when it comes to the project.

Project leaders place the blame on the following five reasons: 1. Customer and Management Changes, 2. Technical Complexities, 3. Unrealistic Project Plans, 4. Staffing Problems, and 5. Inability to detect problems early. They understandably are trying to deflect the blame for the most part from themselves, looking instead to senior management changing things, or having unattainable goals.

If you look at the senior management’s reasons for failure, it includes 1. Insufficient Front-end Planning, 2....