Project control

Project Control The Upper Management Project Team member September 27, Project Control
Dear Managers,
I would like to discuss the project control procedures that can help the company to avoid the project finishing over-budget, adhering to timeline, causing waste of resources, and failing to meet expectations. In this memo I provide the procedures used in evaluating and reporting unplanned changes as well as the procedures of evaluating project quality and the best methods of communicating whether the project meets stated performance and quality objectives.
Some of the changes that should be addressed in order to complete the project successfully are: technical changes, market changes and contractual changes. Technical changes are the alterations of the project scope. Market changes are the changes made so that the project adapts to the changing external market conditions such as regulatory changes and development of new products by competitors (Kerzner, 2001). Contractual changes include the changes made on the contract with the stakeholder involved in the project. The management should prevent uncontrollable changes because they have a negative impact on the project.
Implementation of change control can be done using specific procedures. One of the procedures is to conduct impact analysis. In this case, the likely impact of the uncontrollable changes is assessed. In this stage proposed changes are provided and they are analysed in relation to the impact of the changes in order to determine whether they are within or outside the scope of the project requirements. The second step is to determine the financial requirements of the changes. This will determine whether the changes can be implemented using the available financial resources. Thirdly, the management should find out the reason why the change is needed (Stare, 2001). It should determine the business need for the changes and establish whether the business will benefit from the changes if implemented successfully. In the next fourth step, the company should analyse the challenges and constraints that may be faced when implementing the changes. This will enable the management team to be prepared for any of the challenges and risks and be able to tackle them appropriately.
In terms of project quality evaluation, the management should evaluate and communicate whether the project is meeting any stated performance and quality objectives of the management. This is done through comparison of the planned quality standards and the quality outcome of the project. Evaluation of the project quality also involves checking whether specific tasks of the project have been completed in the right sequence of predecessors and successors (Burke, 1999). This is achieved through a quality check schedule which should not indicate more than 5% of the tasks missing logic (Stare, 2001). The project quality evaluation should also involve checking the resource utilization to ensure that resources have been used efficiently in the project to achieve management objectives.
Project quality evaluation should also be communicated through appropriate mechanisms. The management should provide a top down and bottom up communication channel with a feedback loop in order to communicate the project quality evaluation outcomes (Stare, 2001). The management should communicate whether the project has made its performance and quality objectives through meetings, internal memos, emails and focus groups.
Works cited
Burke, Rory. Project Management: Planning and Control Techniques. Chichester, England: J. Wiley, 1999. Print.
Kerzner, Harold. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. New York: John Wiley, 2001. Print.
Stare, Aljaz. “ Reducing negative impact of project changes with risk and change management.” Mibes Transactions, 5 (2001), pp. 151-165.