End-to-End Project Tracking

A Tool for Project Managers

By Bob McGannon, PMP

Despite the pressure to “get to building the product” you have performed detailed planning and lined up a very capable team. It is time to start the next phase of the project and move into “Project Control”. Our tendencies as project managers at this point are to manage progress against our schedule, manage status meetings and handle issues. When we limit our activities to this set we miss a number of strategic opportunities.

View/download the Mindavation Project Control Tracking tool from the Mindavation website and read the following article to see the value it provides – beyond being a centralized place to control a number of project elements the project manager can…

Reinforce Stakeholder Management

Project control processes can be used to reinforce project value to your stakeholders, as well as keep your project team focused on the business goals that spearheaded your project. Continuous tracking of the progress of your project, not just from a schedule and task standpoint, but from a “status against business objectives” approach will help the project manager answer the stakeholder’s question “Where are we relative to my ability to accomplish X?” Having a tie between requirements presented by stakeholders and the progress the project is making towards those objectives provides a business-minded versus a technical-minded status approach. In addition, tracking status in this way keeps the project team focused on the matter at hand from a business standpoint – which is the REAL reason the project exists, isn’t it?

This business focused project control approach also helps keep the project’s need for user/customer involvement in the minds of key stakeholders. Tying the requirements of the project’s product directly to interim product testing is valuable, both from a quality assurance and end user perspective. This approach gives the stakeholder a view of how: the requirements will be delivered, the requirements have to be tied to distinct objectives, and the need for key users to be involved to test against those requirements.

In conjunction with the above, sorting the tool by “requestor name” provides a concentrated view of the project from the stakeholder’s perspective, and can greatly enhance the effectiveness of the project manager in managing stakeholder expectations.

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