Project Management Step by Step: How to Plan and Manage a Highly Successful Project

Step 4.4 Monitor and manage progress

The project manager should be monitoring the progress of the project continuously. This will happen informally all the time as you work on the project, and once a week formally with the project team in your review meeting. The basic process for monitoring and managing progress is to look at what tasks are completed, and what should have been completed and then ask yourself the following series of questions:

• Are you on schedule or not, relative to the plan? Are there any trends you are worried about?

• If there is any slippage, what is the impact? Are the late tasks on the critical path or not?

• How much time are you late? So how much do you need to recover to bring yourself back on track? Are you likely to slip ...